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War of the Worlds
Paramount Pictures


6.3

based on 40 reviews
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based on 1037 votes
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FILM:

MPAA RATING: PG-13 for frightening sequences of sci-fi violence and disturbing images

Starring Tom Cruise, Justin Chatwin, Dakota Fanning, Tim Robbins, Miranda Otto, David Alan Basche, James DuMont, Yul Vazquez, and Daniel Franzese

A contemporary retelling of H.G. Wells's seminal classic, the sci-fi adventure thriller reveals the extraordinary battle for the future of humankind through the eyes of one American family fighting to survive it. (Paramount Pictures)

GENRE(S):	Action \| Adventure \| Drama \| Sci-fi \| Suspense/Thriller
WRITTEN BY:	Josh Friedman David Koepp H.G. Wells (novel)
DIRECTED BY:	Steven Spielberg
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: November 22, 2005 Video: November 22, 2005 Theatrical: June 29, 2005
RUNNING TIME:	116 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	USA

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

100

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

Working in the spirit of his predecessors but with the kind of uncanny special effects they could barely dream of, Spielberg has come up with an impressive production that is disturbing in the way only provocative science fiction can be.

100

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

Contains all of the hallmarks of classic genre Spielberg: It shows you things you've never seen before, instills an accompanying sense of awestruck wonder, and delivers long stretches of heightened, delirious excitement that remind you why people started going to the movies in the first place.

100

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

It is, simply, the alienation-invasion movie to beat all alien-invasion movies: meticulously detailed and expertly paced and photographed, with sights so spectacular and terrible that viewers will have to consciously remind themselves to close their mouths when their jaws drop open.

100

New York Magazine Ken Tucker

Steven Spielberg's War of the Worlds is huge and scary, moving and funny--another capper to a career that seems like an unending succession of captivations.

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

An attack-of-the-aliens disaster film crafted with sinister technological grandeur -- a true popcorn apocalypse.

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

With this genuinely big entertainment, powered by a beating heart, Steven Spielberg has put the summer back in summer movies.

Slate David Edelstein

It's the human struggle that makes this a sci-fi masterpiece.

Variety Todd McCarthy

A gritty, intense and supremely accomplished sci-fier.

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

Rivets and amazes, even if it falls just frustratingly short of the mind-expanding grandeur it could have had.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

It's impossible to praise too highly the verve, skill and authenticity with which Spielberg brings off his alien invasion.

Washington Post Stephen Hunter

The audience is treated to one extraordinary vision after another; the sense of a world literally being destroyed around the principal actors, the sense of their flight through panic and destruction, the sense of concussion, collapse, rubble and ruin.

Dallas Observer Robert Wilonsky

The filmmaker who once aimed to enchant his audiences with cheerful stories of beatific visitors from outer space now wants only to scare the hell out of us. E.T., as it turns out, is a mass murderer after all, and we are his Reese's Pieces.

LA Weekly Scott Foundas

The imagery is startling not just for its symbolic resonances, but for the breathless intensity with which it sears the screen.

The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt

Might be too realistic for its own good: The film takes perhaps a little too much glee in its abilities to manufacture mayhem. That being said, the ride is extraordinary.

Empire Colin Kennedy

Dark and stormy, even gloomy, this is a distinctly autumnal blockbuster from the man who invented summer.

The New Republic Stanley Kauffmann

Kaminski, who is as good as any cinematographer working today, matches the chromatic tones of shots to their content in ways that can only be called exciting.

Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov

Certainly one of the most lovingly crafted, end-of-the-world, cinematic feasts ever made, a spectacle of destruction and survival not even C.B DeMille could have envisioned.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

War of the Worlds is not vintage Spielberg, and it's on the grim side for a summer action blockbuster, but it's worth the time and money invested.

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

Alas, Robbins is far more interesting than Cruise, and you wonder what the film would have been like if their roles were reversed -- if Robbins were the loser in search of redemption and Cruise the agitated freak in the basement.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey

This is B-movie material all the way, yet it's not only watchable, it's engrossing. That's because the material is in the hands of an A-talent director, who knows, as few of his contemporaries do, how to manipulate the plastic qualities of a film: the lighting, editing, composition, camera movement and production values.

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

The film isn't quite excellent, though, since it sags in the middle and starts to seem repetitive.

USA Today Claudia Puig

But expect a logical plot, and you'll walk out of the theater with a host of questions, mostly concerning procedural points of the alien attack.

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

For the first 100 minutes of his 117-minute film Spielberg holds the audience in a grip of fear. When Ray and Rachel take refuge in the storm cellar of a survivalist (a miscast Tim Robbins), the director's grip relaxes only a bit, but the film never recovers from this excursion into the Gothic.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

It's those dark visions of destruction that stick, even when Spielberg pushes the script to an unlikely happy ending. Great foreplay, failed orgasm.

The New York Times Dana Stevens

Acting is not really the point of this movie, which seems to arise above all from Mr. Spielberg's desire to reaffirm that he is, along with everything else, a master of pure action filmmaking.

Village Voice Michael Atkinson

Although it's thoroughly retooled, H.G. Wells's scenario doesn't allow for many soft landings, and the extreme respect for havoc on view quite properly keeps the Spielbergian cutesies to a minimum.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias

In an unfortunate case of star casting, Cruise strains credibility as a hard-edged Jersey dockworker.

Film Threat Pete Vonder Haar

I thoroughly enjoyed the street level perspective of the world being destroyed, it just would've been nice if they hadn't crapped out at the end.

Washington Post Michael O'Sullivan

As is his wont, Spielberg can't resist stuffing the ending of the movie with a bit too much cheese and baloney. Despite those quibbles, War of the Worlds is taut, gripping and surprisingly dark filmmaking.

Premiere Aaron Hillis

Has masterfully polished mechanics, some of the most seamless CGI effects in recent memory, and the Wells veneration is admirable. However, the film takes far too many creative shortcuts, like bookended narration and aliens that make strategically humanlike mistakes, completely incongruous to their technological superiority.

Boston Globe Ty Burr

War of the Worlds pushes some of the right buttons and enough of the wrong ones to make you wish that Spielberg would move on from aliens already and use his unparalleled talents to focus once more on earth.

New York Post Lou Lumenick

Now that this technically impressive - but seriously flawed and self-referential - remake is finally in theaters to swell the July 4 weekend box office, conversation will doubtless shift to the lamest ending yet to a Steven Spielberg movie.

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

Forget what Tom Cruise does outside his movies: What he does inside his movies is more than enough to wreck them.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

It unfolds in the angst-haunted shadow of the 9'11 terror attacks and teeters on a thin edge of sheer panic.

The New Yorker David Denby

It’s the right role for Cruise, but the movie is so devoted to him, so star-driven, that it begins to seem a little demented.

Time Richard Corliss

The new film is a toss-up with George Pal's very watchable 1953 version: the special effects are even better here, the drama even lamer.

New York Daily News Jami Bernard

Go for the extraordinary special effects, by all means, but not if you want to feel good about yourself or humanity. And heed the PG-13 rating, because this movie takes no prisoners.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

A big, clunky movie containing some sensational sights but lacking the zest and joyous energy we expect from Steven Spielberg.

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

Newly updated but shamelessly hokey, Steven Spielberg's version of the 1898 H.G. Wells yarn about murderous invaders from outer space starts off as a nimble scare show like "Jaws."

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

Extravagant in movie terms but stingy in emotional ones, it embodies all of Spielberg's bad impulses and almost none of his good ones: It's a grand display of how well he knows how to work us over, and yet the desperation with which he tries to get to us is repulsive.

The average user rating for this movie is 6.3 (out of 10) based on 1037 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Adam E. gave it a5:
What could have been an awesome alien movie is crippled by the fact that most of the movie is "Tom Cruise hiding in a basement" and the story is riddled by innumerable flaws: Why didn't anyone find a tripod? Why does some American nutjob now about events in Osaka? How does Robby survive "going to fight" an alien death machine? If aliens observed people, wouldn't they notice disease? Why do the tripods store people when all they want is blood? Why are the aliens nude? How did a plane crash next to the house Cruise and kids were hiding in without vaporizing it? Why did Dakota Fanning's character not stop screaming? Why are clothes not vaporized when people are? I could just keep going, but you get the idea.

ET CCC gave it an8:
Spielberg's rendering of a sci fi nightmare is simply stunning. His mastery of visual effects and composition is amazing. Sure the acting (except for a fine performance by Dakota Fanning) is lame. But don't see it for character development; see it to watch our world being destroyed by big things... and rescued by little things. A visual treat.

Clifford F. gave it an8:
I love this film! Spielberg yet again delivers another masterpiece in the form of an inpsired story with a good ending. Visual effects are awesome and the aliens attacking everyone bring an apocalyptic feeling to it. Tom Cruise has a good role as Ray. John Williams' score also gives the menacing atmosphere to the film. Excellent.

Eon gave it a1:
Now I'm almost convinced that Spielberd is a patsy for the elite. Now that the "terrorist" fear is starting to work not-so-well , they are preparing public to "threat from outer space". And they allways do it in entertainment first, so we will accept it as something "natural" when it actually occurs. They showed the idea of "enhanced-human-through-implanted-microchips" in Star Trek long ago. And what a coincindence - one of the Star Trek creators happened to work for the NASA. And now the microchips are started being pushed towards public, what-a-natural-event. It is interesting that no matter what crap Mr. Spielberg makes, it always gets some "100 percent" positive reviews, no how mysterious is that... Although , most of you will think I'm crazy.

Tom S gave it a1:
Wow, this movie sure is scary. As horror films go, it's really horrifying. Unfortunately, I got up to greet the pizza-man, and when I got back a minute later, somehow all the aliens were mysteriously dying. We're told this was from bacteria of some sort, then shown a zoom-in beyond the level of DNA (much smaller than bacteria) to some indefinite specks. Don't try to think about this one. The whole movie just meandered lazily from one grotesque scene to another. Completely sadistic, really. I didn't see The Passion, but I imagine it's sort of the same thing. This movie only makes sense in the context of 'New World Order' conspiracy theories about Speilberg -- like, if 'they' decide that a billion people have to die to preserve the world's resources, let's just stage a temporary 'alien invasion,' where a ton of people will be helplessly killed, and then the killing will miraculously stop without anyone doing anything. (Probably why we see only the plight of a do-nothing citizen, rather than an actual story a-la ID4.) This sort of speculation is necessary for entertainment because the movie gives you nothing else to think about. No plot, no drama, no honor in the actions of the characters, no imagination. I didn't see it at the theater, only on someone's enormous plasma TV, but the visual effects were underwhelming -- nothing we haven't seen many times before. Many scenes are interrupted in the height of suspense by a fade to silent black that has no purpose except as a future commercial break. Lots of loud noises to keep you and your neighbors awake, though. That earns one point.

AJH gave it a5:
First off, this movie was visually stunning. Some of the best sets and special effects I've seen. I was definitely on the edge of my seat throughout most of the film. However, this movie is hampered by the minor detail that the entire premise makes absolutely no sense. Morgan Freeman's opening narration tells us that the aliens have grown envious, watching humanity. But then it turns out that they buried "tripods" millions of year ago, before humans were even here. Then for some reason the aliens waited for a few million years, until our civilization thrived, and then came to blow us up. That's quite a lot of foresight...I wonder if they bury their spaceships on every planet, just in case they need them millions of years later? This is just one of the massive plotholes (never mind the "I survived somehow" ending). Blah.

Mark McCoy gave it a9:
I dont like Cruise but it's a great mix of awe and terror that makes it interesting.

War of the Worlds Paramount Pictures

War of the Worlds
Paramount Pictures