Review of War of the Worlds (2005) by Martin R — 26 Mar 2015

It may not be among Steven Spielberg's most critically acclaimed films, but "War of the Worlds" is a great example of why the man (Steven) is still a hell of a director. The Tripods make a hell of an entrance, you get Spielberg's tendency to to use broken families--divorced parents--to add emotional depth, John Williams provides a pounding score that sounds more like the output of post-2010 composers (except that Williams can make an average score like this listenable AND work perfectly in/out of context of the film), there's certainly some intense moments, Spielberg nails the scope and scale from the Tripods to the plane crash [much like Gareth Edwards would do much later in "Godzilla"], Tom Cruise does a fine job here, and.

...human-fertilizer, yeah, watch out out for that one haha! Even if you find the younger actors to be annoying, there's still plenty to appreciate on a more technical level. The one thing that's making me scratch my head is trying to figure out whether or not I saw this in theaters when it came out.