Review of War of the Worlds (2005) by Ben L — 09 Aug 2017

War of the Worlds may not be the best Steven Spielberg movie, but it might be the best H.G. Wells movie.

Using the knowledge gained from the mistakes of their 2002 film 'The Time Machine', DreamWorks SKG has figured out the proper way to 'Americanize' an H.G. Wells novel. Instead of dropping key plot points and replacing them with romances or characters portrayed differently from the book, War of the Worlds hits almost all of the points on a checklist for a movie based on the century old novel. Tripods reveal themselves on Earth - Check.

A large group of people goes to check them out, leading to the beginning of the chaos - Check.

A man must leave everything behind and hang all hopes on reaching a destination - Check.

A crazy man has the idea of starting again, underground and taking out the Martians that way - Check.

And lastly, the man makes it to his destination to discover that the easiest way to defeat the Martians is to simply just survive because they die due to bacteria.

Tom Cruise is always a wonderful and charismatic star, but in this film, we get to see him play a vulnerable and scared father, which is awesome. Dakota Fanning gives a fantastic performance as Rachel, and Justin Chatwin... Well, he's Justin Chatwin. However, he is better in this than he is in most films. This is a truly thrilling feature adaptation of a classic novel that has everything you could ask for. Steven Spielberg at the helm, fantastic and truly frightening sequences that are memorable in every sense of the word, some really great character moments amidst the chaos, a score by John Williams (he's the man), narration by none other than Morgan Freeman, and every good moment from the book including the ferry and the basement scene, and none of the bad ones. As I said, to compare this to other Spielberg films is unfair, as this one isn't even close to his best, but it is a fantastic adaptation. Those who loved the thrill of not knowing what will happen next in the novel will find the same feelings here. It is not to be missed.