One of the good things about having a grandma around is that Olga and I can go to the movies again. We wanted to see “Mr. and Mrs. Smith” in the K-Cineplex, but they had some power problems (coincidence? I think not), so we made our way back to Rio and watched “War of the Worlds“.
Directed by: Steven Spielberg
Genres: Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi, Thriller
Cast: Tom Cruise, Dakota Fanning, Justin Chatwin, Tim Robbins, Rick Gonzalez, Yul Vazquez, Lenny Venito, Lisa Ann Walter, Gene Barry, David Alan Basche, Michael Brownlee, Camillia Sanes, Marlon Young, John Eddins, Peter Gerety
IMDB raintg: 6.9
My rating: 5.5 [rate 5.5]
I didn’t like it at all. Olga enjoyed it at times but overall she wasn’t too impressed by it either.
The film has “Steven Spielberg” stamped all over it – lots of people moving around, huge scale of scenes, loads of expensive computer graphics, and a nice “E.T.” hand looked like a signature at the end.
But all of that didn’t compensate for a really boring story and terrible acting.
Warning: Spoilers ahead.
The story: aliens conquered the Earth in a rather brute force and expensive way, even though they had the technology for more elegance. They than turned humans into blood donors without any further planning. After some time these aliens started to die on their own and the world was saved. That’s it. I’m not kidding you.
First of all, where is the war in this? A couple of platoons were shown briefly and they were disposed off by aliens as quickly as they disappeared from the screen. There was no war. There was henocide, but there was no war. I probably wasn’t the only person who would expect some nukes, but that’s OK – I can understand. Rendering nuclear explosions might be expensive even for Steven. But at least give us some good action – tanks, helicopters, jets, ships…. something? Nope… A couple of rocket launchers closer the end is all we get. Disappointing. That wasn’t worth the 4 CYP I paid. I can see this on TV.
Acting. With Tom Cruise playing the main character I pretty much expected it, so I’m just acknoledging that I wasn’t wrong. The only person who was acting nicely was that little girl Dakota Fanning. Everyone else just sucked.
And, of course, all those other stupid things which are usually present in great amount in any alien movie – Tom has the only working car in the whole world. Oh, except for the military. After the electromagnetic storm all electric, electronic, and mechanical devices are dead – even the analog watches on Tom’s hand, but there are these two guys running around – one with the photocamera and another with camcorder. C’mon… And, that situation when everyone wanted to get Tom’s car and he was the only one with the gun – I don’t think so. Even Steven thought that it was bending it too much and introduced the second guy with the gun. And that’s in the USA of modern times… There were plenty more. Some things were more obvious, others less. But I think there were way too many of them, considering how boring the rest of the moving was and that audience didn’t have much to do rather than pick on details.
To finish this off – the movie is not caring any point across either. It’s not educational and it’s not entertaining. Thus it is easily forgettable. I mean it hasn’t even been two hours since I saw it and I am already starting to forget it. War of what? What am I talking about? A movie? I don’t think so…
Personally, I like that movie. It’s not educational, of couse, it’s a blockbuster! But it’s sight film (I talk about my opinion only). The story is based on H.G. Wells novel and the movie follows it sufficiently punctually.
About the war. I think that the war between highly developed civilization and aboriginal exactly looks like there (remember conquest of America, for example). Spielberg demonstrated very well the atmosphere of that war – people didn’t have any chances to rescue!
Resume: This is a good, sight movie. But, please, don’t expect from it to be the same as super stylish Tarantino movies :)
I watched this movie couple of days ago and I didn’t like it much as well.
First of all it is kinda slow [slowly that I was supposing it to be].
Second, the story is not very clear. For instance: how come these machines lost the protection field??? Such a huge plan of invesion [machines were on Earth long time ago] and suddenly it fails with no particular reason – kind stupid from my point of view.
Third: main person seems to be way toooo lucky when machines destroy everything on their way very.
Forth: to few action. Mainly – two points: the fact of the invesion and then running the whole movie :(
I am not good at evaluating movies, nut personally, this is not what I thought this movie should be.
Michael,
I usually separate all movies into educational and entertaining. By educational I don’t mean those that teach you something. Not necessarily. They can just make you think about something. If they don’t, then they’d better entertain. “War of the Worlds” was niether educational, nor entertaining.
You’re wrong on the Tarantino bit. Spielberg is number one director of blockbusters. He did a few of them. And he is way more experienced than Tarantino as a director. Tarantino directed only about 4 or 5 minutes. Spielberg directed almost 50! So I have some expectations when go to see his movies.
He just didn’t put enough effort into “War of the worlds”. It was a slow and boring film which was made in a rush. And it was made in a rush. For example, filming schedule was only 72 days. They had to shoot all big scale scenes first, so that computer graphics would finish rendering by the end of the shooting.
Even considering your point about highly developed civilization conquering primitivse, the film sucked. There wasn’t enough action. War scenes were like three or four two minutes long each. That’s not enough for two hours.
And the whole “saving of the Earth” was idiotic. From all the things out there, the invasion stopped from some virus or something…
No, the movie sucked. And more I think about it, the more I think it sucked. :)
I hated the movie. I was looking forward to it so much. It is a steven speilberg film. But the movie just sucked. There just wasnt any real substance to it.