I must admit that I agree with alot of the other reviews in regaurds to the fact the movie could have been better. I personally do not like Tom Cruise an any way, shape or form, but at least the movie did keep me going. Yes the constant screaming of Dakota Fanning did get on the nerves, but given the point of view of a little girl in a crazy situation, it could be understood. Overall though the movie was definitely worth watching.… Expand

Visceral, vile, repulsive and totally awesome. Alien meets the Nazi death camps. And the creepy sound effects as the tripods processed and disgorged human blood towards the conclusion freaked me out-it was the sound of death.

Between my dislike of tom cruise, the poor acting and average special effects this wasn't a very good film.

The ending was indeed lame, but taken exactly from the book. You got a problem with the ending, take it up with H.G. Wells. In terms of "disaster" movies, this is as good as they get - Spielberg is a master filmmaker. It has heart, adventure, and terror not seen in normal movies of the same ilk. All in all, a worthy picture.

This is the worst movie I've seen in a very long time. It has no style, no personality. Its sole purpose is just to show a small town get blown to pieces in the first 20 minutes. Every other second of the movie is agonizing! Its not even a movie, its what the "nails on a chalk board" sound is to the visual sense. The actors all spend the whole time screaming at each other in a very melodramatic fashion. Or just screaming in general. I've never seen people scream so much before in my life. If a giant robot is trying to kill me, I'm not going to be like "DAD WHY ARE YOU UPSET ITS ONLY THE END OF THE WORLD!!!! DAD!!! DAD!!! DAD!!! AAAAAAH YOU'RE MAKING ME NERVOUS TRYING TO FLEE FOR YOUR LIFE!!!!!" The characters don't even have lines when they're not screaming or acting stupid. At one point, Tom Cruise's son begs him to let him go watch a battle between the US army and aliens, and Tom has to try and drag him away; to no success. That's the dumbest thing I've ever seen in a movie, and it was totally non-secateurs. No plot. No nothing. When the pretty visual effects stop momentarily, Tom Cruise resorts to throwing peanut butter and breaking the windows of his house to entertain us. I guess they ran out of budget after making all the terrible CGI.… Expand

Does justice to H.G Welles novel. A supreme film that shares parallels between all of Spielberg's classics; Jaws, Close Encounters, E.T and Jurassic Park.

Had Spielberg changed the ending, he'd be damned. But now the ending is too hollywood. He's damned either way. What he's not damned for is creating this mythical, and sure to be classic, hold your breath film that should surely be used in the same sentence as his other classics.

The first good film of this year. Must see!

The movie is good, but deserves a 10 for the acting alone. I've always thought of Cruise as a caricuture. Never impressed me in Magnolia even, but it feels like he is no longer acting, but IS Ray Ferrier.

It may not be a critics film, but definetely an audience film. The JP-esq hide and seek scene is very thrilling.

This was dumb. I perfereed the original.

The 9/11 undertones and the implications on our pop culture make this movie more than an average summer fair.

I didn't expect much from the trailers, but indeed, an edge of your seat, frightening and thrilling film. Probably the best we've seen since Jurassic Park.

One of the best Speilberg films! I've never been this frightened since Jaws. Dakota Fanning is a talented young actress. Tom Cruise was very impressive.

Amazing!

I didn't know the book, I didn't watch the trailers or making of's because I wanted to simply inhale what's coming (I often do that and I really can recomend that!). After a long time I was INSIDE a movie again and as amazed as the protagonists in the film.

This is a terrific SF horror film. There were times when I was gripping my seat, horrified and frightened, especially in the scene at the house in the basement near the beginning. Also, the opening scenes of mayhem and death rays were shocking and coldly relentless. Many great visuals such at the flame train were spectacularly original. A filmgeek's feast.

Three decades since he practically created the summer blockbuster with JAWS, director Steven Spielberg is back and bigger than ever with WAR OF THE WORLDS, his modern take on H.G. Wells' classic science-fiction novel. Not since 1993's JURASSIC PARK has Spielberg crafted such a relentlessly thrilling motion picture, one so harrowing that it draws more comparison to his work in SCHINDLER'S LIST and SAVING PRIVATE RYAN than his equally-exciting dinosaur smash. Tom Cruise brings the proper gravity to his role as a failing father who is suddenly forced into action by the imminent crisis and is now responsible for the survival of his family amidst the global chaos. Dakota Fanning also helps bring humanity to the tale as the terrified daughter, and Justin Chatwin is satisfactory as her stubborn older brother, who feels compelled to fight back against the invaders. WOTW is a difficult film to discuss without spoiling certain scenes. While there are not many plot points in particular to ruin, it is of more concern not to discuss select nightmarish sequences, or else their impact will be greatly diminished. Comparisons to the events of 9/11 and the Holocaust are inevitable and effective, all without being manipulative. After the initial attack, Fanning's character asks if the terrorists are behind it, and the line rings of sincerity, not a lame joke. Once the stuff hits the fan, misinformation and speculation begin to run rampant, while people place up signs searching for lost family and friends. While the characters make the story compelling, it would be worthless without the top-notch special effects of ILM. They effectively blend into the tale while dropping jaws throughout with each sweeping shot. Spielberg decides to tell the story as the family sees it, leading to reserved shots. The viewer sees the invaders in reflection as opposed to a blatent exposition shot most summer moneymakers would demand. At one point, the family is feet away from cresting a hill, on the other side of which a full-out battle is taking place between humanity and the enemy. Spielberg decides to resist the money shot of the summer and instead pursue the human drama of the situation. WOTW is so fascinating in how realistic it paints its doomsday scenario that it is easier to forgive the weak, if traditional, ending. The problem with the climax is how it differs in tone from the rest of the film. This is a horror story, a tale of survival, and Spielberg spends a good length of time convincing you of that. Overall, WAR OF THE WORLDS is a fascinating thriller and compelling drama that will go down as one of Spielberg's finest works and as one of the best films of the summer, if not the year.… Expand

The loudest and most visually arresting film I've ever seen, Speilberg's War of the Worlds (as filtered through an American Dream-type narrative) is let down by some of his thinnest plotting to date and characters so ancilliary to the mayhem that they become annoying when the blowing of stuff up ceases for a breath every 10 minutes or so. As such, it's no Jurrassic Park (his best work, a mix of compelling storytelling and incredibly realised visualisation), but is worth the price of admission for the way he imagines Wells' world through a 21st century lense. However, whilst the visual and aural, ear-ringing experience is second-to-none, the story suffers from a Hollywood ending where the world blows up at night but you find your family and live happily ever after in the morning.… Expand

Really kool movie!....the FX are awesome!...the aliens are kool too!.....It's nice to see Tom Cruise playing a loser character, and not the nice guy who save the world!....Nobody should miss this movie!

Bad acting, bad script.

10/10....Do I have to say anything else?

Not what I expected, had glimpses of greatness, but fell flat. I can see why Cruise has been acting so strange, he may be responsible for the first Spielberg picture to fail that has had this much hype.

Fantastic!

Worthless trash, ruined a perfect novel I enjoyed as a kid.

5 for the aliens 0 for Mr. Spielberg. Why Mr. Spielberg refuses to grow as a director is beyond me. I felt like I was watching ET. The whole human plot with Tom Cruise is beyond pathetic. Wait until you see the lame-o son storyline! The special effects are great but you almost can't blame the aliens for wanting destroy us. Maybe they wanted to be in a decent movie and just got bored . What a waste of a great book.… Expand

Blows Independence Day Away!

A horrible movie with no plot and Tom Cruise running and hiding the entire movie. The worst movie I've seen in years.

The special effect are good, but nothing to write home about. The action and story keep the viewer'ss attention. But the end is on the anticlimatic side ruining the movie as a whole. Do not make this movie your first choice if you are going to the movie theater.

Flawed only by the constraints of the Wells novel-- these aliens are smart enough to travel a zillion miles and plant the tripods beneath the surface, buit they can't analyze the atmosphere to know it will kill them? Dummies. Dakota Fanning is a national treasure. Do not take young kids. You will pay for therapy for years.

SPOILERS: You'll succumb to the visual effects, but it's the astounding denouement when Tom Cruise stands on the shiny hull of a downed Martian ship, as if in human victory, and then peels off his latex head to reveal he is a "Kate Lovin' Monster of Love" seemed ... forced. Nothing wrong with Cruise that a tranquilizer dart filled to the brim with antidepressants wouldn9;t cure.… Expand

Another brilliant Steven Spielberg movie. Non-stop tension and action. The best alien invasion movie ever.

Fantastic entertainment. Worked from the begining to the end. It had the audience attention during the entire movie. Great work from Tom C and Spielberg!

Very enjoybale.

Overall a very enjoyable movie. Great special effects, but with no story.

Amazing, jaw-dropping, creepy, awe-inspiring and breathlessly thrilling.

Fantastic little thriller!

Extraordinary! Speilberg does justice to my favorite novel.

Amazing! I have never been this thrilled in years!

EDGE OF YOUR SEAT!

Spielberg is a genius!

One of the best films I've ever seen. Ending was ok, but the thrill, the story and most of all, the acting, rises above everything.

Awesome movie!

There is something so symobloc about that red weed. just beautiful!

Someone give Tom and Oscar.. NOW!

H.G Welles must be smiling in his grave.

Quite possiby the best movie of the year! Absolutely fantastic! The feel of terror is real in this one folks. See it now!

Fantastic movie, awesome special effects, great cast, alot more than a summer thriller.

Utterly fasciniating, with some of the best effects you'll ever see!

Horrifying... holds on to your guts and doesn't let them go!

Ok, I admit it. I cried. There I said it. It is emotional, very emotional.

If your sole reason for not watching this movie is so you don't support Tom Cruise and Scientology then you'll have another excuse. The movie just plain sucked!

Horrfying, non stop!

Terrific, to say the least.

I remember going to the theater when JAWS came out. Everyone screamed, and jumped out of their seats. 30 years later, the experience is reincarnated.

Biting finger nails, edge of your seat, eyes wide open experience. A blockbuster with a heart! Tom Cruise and Dakota Fanning are terrific. Ditto for the special effects.

It's better than the 50's version. I don't know why everyone is complaining about the ending, it's very plausible. The scene where Cruise has to choose between his children ripped my heart.

worst. ending. evar.

An instant classic! One of Speilbergs VERY best.

Superb! Beautiful imagery. Simply unforgettable. Justin Chatwin is a great actor.

I will be seeing this again, surely.

Haunting!

All 'flash' effects and bad acting. Cruise ruins everything.

Fantastic. leaves much to the imagination in a way that is good. could have used more character development and a final fight though. I thought the ending itself was good enough.

When Cruise looks atop and sees the world in a shade of crimson, you just sit there in awe. Well done, Steven!

Hey Mr. Cruise, you have a new fan!

Simply out of this world.... 10/10.

It's a great film, with great effects and great acting. Will be remembered 20 years from now.

I though the frist 50 minutes were some of the best ever put to film in the last few years. The rest, what can you expect we all know how this comes out, didn't you read the book or see the first movie...how else are they going to do it.

I didn't have high hopes, but I wasn't disappointed. It's like Jurassic Park and Jaws all over again. Classic Speilberg!

Great film!

When the first tripod comes up, that maybe be the best scene in cinematic History. GREAT film.

Be prepared to jump out of your seat!

I like the film about the illegal alien better. Say what you like about "The Terminal" as being terminally mawkish, at least the filmmaker's heart was in it. I also like the film by Spielberg Jr. better, too. Say what you like about "Signs", at least the filmmaker took chances, nutty chances ("Swing, Merrill, swing!") that you might hate, but ought to respect since risk-taking story choices is in short supply these days. Shyamalan's alien couldn't work a doorknob. That's an achilles heel. Spielberg's alien can't smell the presence of three live humans. That's a contrivance. "War of the Worlds" is boring. Seeing droves of people running away from danger is something we've seen too many times before. There's not a world of a difference between this H.G. Wells adaptation and "The Day After Tomorrow." In a nutshell, the narrative of "War of the Worlds" is run, rest, run, let Tim Robbins be creepy, run some more.… Expand

Definitely a spectacle, though lacking in some areas. It's worth a matinee price on the big screen, but it certainly isn't Spielberg's best--that's for sure. Though exciting & fun nonetheless.

Tom Cruise is the luckiest S.O.B. in the world.

Let me preface my remarks by stating that the original War Of The Worlds starring Gene Barry is one of my favorite movies of all time. Speiberg is an absolute genius at his craft. So it was with great anticipation that I was so much looking forward to this movie. I just came back from a packed theater showing on opening evening. At the end of the movie for one second the grandfather without a speaking part is Gene Barry. When the movie ended there were boo's heard from the audience I kid you not. The last ten minutes of the movie the wheels fall off. As for the dialogue there is very little unless one can appreciate the constant banter between a miscast Tom Cruise and the paranoid Dakota Fanning. There is no explanation why we are under attack other than they want our planet or any attempt to explain how we are to defend ourselves. It is just a constant attack with computer graphics and Tom on the run. The ending is so preposterous (and I am not speaking about how the War is resolved) but rather Tom's family that you feel cheated. The movie just doesn't work.… Expand

The movie was awful and forgotten ten minutes after I left the theater. I am certain that it will prove a success at the box office but is really not even a good made for TV movie. Rent the original.

First hour and a half were great. But someone please tell me, what was up with the ending? It just ended. Kinda like the camera just ran out of batteries.

Wow. All I can say.

I'd say 90% of the movie is total non sense

Interesting movie from spielberg. It was a quickly shot movie that seemed like a fun project for him. It almost seemed like a two hour short film. There were not a lot of ideas put forward, but it was a nice variation on an old story.

This is THE summer blockbuster. I was glued to the screen the other time. And I haven't felt such a sense of dread while watching a movie in ages. A work of art.

How can this movie get more than a zero? i'd give it negatives it this rating system had it. was it thrilling? sure. but if you want an ending, forget about it. worse ending ever. it [the ending] will leave you dazed and confused, cursing on the way out. horrible horrible horrible. for those who have seen this movie, i feel your pain, but let me ask you this: where did "robbie" come from?

Excellent film in all the was that matter.

War of the Worlds is a visual spectacle but pointless. The aliens just came and died without much exposition. As a result, it was flat, but still something to watch.

Absoluetly thriling. Some of the best images on film.

Wow...scary sh..

A strong enough story that even an actor like Cruise can't ruin (though he seems to be on quaaludes throughout the movie, barely able to perform). Dakota Fanning acts circles around Cruise and holds the movie together. The special effects aren't bad, and there are some very creepy moments.

A 10 just for the acting. Dakota and Cruise should be nominated.

By far the dumbest film i've seen in a very long time. soooooo far fetched and the ending????? i guess the aliens have a life expectancy of a fruit fly.

Steven Spielberg's "War of the Worlds" is, in the end, a missed opportunity. Here are all the makings of a truly unique summer blockbuster: a visionary director, focus on characters over effects, a palpable sense of dread. But for some reason it just doesn't come together in the end like it should. The movie is worth seeing for its moments of absolute brilliance. For example, the first attack and the ferry scene are masterful sequences that demand to be viewed in a movie theater. There are also many haunting images (a river of corpses, a train in flames, Tom Cruise blindfolding his daughter) that will linger in your mind long after the rest of the movie has vanished, and it will. Because the script is predictable at best, and smothered in cliches at worst. Because the film, in the end, just doesn't know what it wants to be. Halfway through, the characters the film has been following are sort of passed over for a larger sense of danger and panic, and the film just can't recover. The first 40 minutes or so are packed with real dread, and Spielberg succeeds in creating a feeling of disorientation and panic in the viewer that mirrors that of the character, shooting almost all of the attack sequences from street level. Also, a third-act detour into a basement inhabited by Tim Robbins' deranged survivalist holds several eerie thrills and a satisfying, somewhat shocking conclusion, but the sequence degenerates into a subpar retread of the kitchen scene in "Jurassic Park". And by the time the film reaches its borderline-absurd conclusion with little to know explanation given, the audience is likely to feel cheated out of the film that could have been.… Expand

Uber-cool!

I now know what God did on the 7th day. He did not rest, but he did make this movie and send it into the head of Speilburg.

This movie was awsome. Tom Cruise wasn't some hero and wasn't a genius. It made it seem like what real people would do in these situations. Sometimes he was just retarded, becuase he wouldn't have time to think it through if it where happining. I just thought that made it seem a little more real. Also, the ending is great.

It is unusual for me to gain an emotional response to a movie in anyway I consider to be noteworthy, and it is even more rare for me to be even scared in any sense of the word by a movie beyond a simple jump at a cheap trick. This movie genuinely terrified, not scared, TERRIFIED me. The acting, the pacing, the special effects, and the overall REALNESS of the experience were the best I9;ve seen in movies in YEARS. I honestly can't remember the last time a movie gripped me this much, save perhaps the first time I saw Jurassic Park: in 1st grade! This film certainly ranks with, if not CROWNS, the best achievements of Spielberg and directors in general. It is easily the best movie I have seen all year. Cinderella Man, eat your heart out!… Expand

One of the most fascinating studies of hopelessness and survival. Speilberg doesn't disappoint. The visual effects are a feast for the eyes. Cruise and Fanning shine.

Very symbolic and beautiful!