Featured Film Review
'War of the Worlds' 2005 Dreamworks Starring Tom Cruise, Justin Chatwin and Dakota Fanning Length: 122 mins
'War of the Worlds' recounts a personal story of a man and his two children, who are trying to survive following the invasion of earth by aliens much higher up the evolutionary scale. In terms of technology and intellect, humans are only so many maggots to these unsympathetic beings, who systematically set about clearing the Earth of every living creature but themselves.
I thought I was going to see a watchable film, which would give me time to allow my dinner to go down. I didn't expect to be so rivetted to the big screen and to come out the other end saying, 'That really surprised me! It was brilliant!' I thought I'd be going to see Tom Cruise playing Tom Cruise, some great special effects and the inevitable slushy, over-sentimental bit somewhere around the time when the sole, American hero saves the whole world single-handedly. Out of all of those, I actually only saw the great special effects and they were so integral to the film that it's only in retrospect that I even noticed that they were there.
Tom Cruise was utterly convincing as a working class man completely out of his depth. He spent most of the film visibly scared, but trying his very best to keep himself and his children alive. There were no heroes as such; each human being reacted as you would expect the people in your own neighbourhood to react to something apocolyptically strange occuring. Some of it ugly; some of it panic-striken; some of it even showing a glimpse of decency; but all of it believable.
In amongst the gripping narrative, there were some genuinely funny moments. My personal favourite was the discussion between father and son. Son: Are they terrorists? Father: No. They don't come from here. Son: Are they from Europe? The British audience watching that erupted with laughter.
Highly recommended.
Reviewer: Mab
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May I just say that the sound effects used for the aliens was one of the most effective I've EVER heard?
I, too, loved this film and the way it absolutely, beautifully, and effectively conveyed terror, hopelessness, and feelings of insignificance in the face of overwhelming odds.
Fabulous film! Must see on the big screen. Buy the DVD.
Reviewer: TygerCub
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I would like to say I was well impressed with the film, I actually like Tom Cruise, although I have agree some of his role leave a lot to be desired. But this film truly shows what a great actor he can be, which makes me wonder if it is the scripts that are at fault on previous films.
I am a War of The Worlds fan, I loved the sound track version, don't know what happened to my copy, it has been lost in Wolverhampton as I had it when I moved here,. and the original black and white version, so was looking forward to this one.
The film got straight to the plot in the beginning, which is great no farting around with sub plots and such, there was no love interests. The film was action packed all the way through, there were no slow parts, where you wanted to look at your watch, and you could see the terror in the charactor that Tom played, he was not a hero, just a man trying to survive with his kids, and when he had to make a choice between letting his son go or not loosing his daughter brilliant, how can you make that choice.
The special effects were fantastic, but you expect this with Spielberg, another gold star for Speilberg.
I am going to go see it again with Alan, it is about the best re-make of an old film I have seen in a long long time.
If you get the chance to go see it at the big screen go, as I think it will loose alot of the magic on the small screen.
Reviewer: Aud
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