Yup, tall, thick Boston accent, crazy/paranoid and meets a similar "ending".

Sweetie, I get both movies. One I liked, one I didn't. Wait right there while I get my refund from War, I'll put a down payment on a sense of humor for you.

I see you didn't find it funny so maybe you just didn't get it.

Yeah, but the more I talk trash on message boards the cooler I am starting to feel.


Yes, when I consider all factors (director, star, budget, source material) and keep everything relative, it is one of the worst movies I have ever seen.

I apologize in advance if this is a "copy cat" review, since I don't have time to read through all the other pages but...here's my quick impression.

Very solid movie, could have done without the last 10 minutes.

Very intense, edge of your seat style stuff.

One minor complaint, Tom Cruise looks so good for his age, that his son (16-17 years old) looks like it could be his brother. I don't buy Cruise as a Dad just yet.

Three Bright Stars out of Four. The ending needs alot of work.

@ iggystar


Although I disagree with you review of WotW that comment about Robbins wasn't too far off and it made me think.

Since digitalfreaknyc, iggystar, and others gave great explanations of how flawed this movie was only to be criticized for everything they said, I won't waste my time and just say I thought the movie was horrible. Worst movie I've seen so far this year. Spielberg seems to be taking films off.

Good: Saving Private Ryan, Minority Report
Bad: A.I., WotW

Hopefully this trends continues and his next effort will not suck like this one.

So if this would have starred Christian Slater and been directed by Uwe Boll, it would have been an decent movie to you?

You are a funny guy.

With Spielberg and Cruise, I thought the movie should have been a classic. I just did not enjoy a "war" being conducted primarily in a basement with a 10 year old girl as the second lead character and huge metal tripods as the enemy. Throw in a shotgun wrestling match, an inept metal eye from the Abyss, and I was just disappointed. It was one of the worst movies I have ever seen.

I appreciated the film, and what Spielberg was trying to do. But as a summer actioner, I didn't enjoy it. A lot of it was quite disturbing, echoes of 9/11 and such. So, while it was a good movie, I don't know if it's one I'd watch again or recommend to everybody.

Tom Cruise is a good actor, and played his role well. But he carries a lot of baggage that makes it hard to buy him as a "regular joe" type guy. I think another actor would have worked better in that regards...ironically, one choice I thought of was Tim Robbins.

Dakota Fanning was very good too. Maybe too good...her screaming and crying bothered me a lot (I have a daughter of my own), and was one of the disturbing things about the film.

If I were on the Ebert and Roeper show, I'd give it a mild , with the caveat to folks that this is not your typical "turn off your brain" summer blow-em-up.

I also thought the bit where



was unnecessary and silly. Particularly since:



***

Looking back over the thread, I see there is some interest in reading the book. Here it is in PDF format, for free:

http://www.planetpdf.com/ebookarticl...ContentID=6180

What did Ebert and Roeper give it anyhow?

A Thumbs Down (Ebert) and ??? (Roeper)

This film will drop like a rock when word-of-mouth get's around.
Don't get me wrong i love steven's films (I have like 14 of his films on DVD),but this is not that very good of a film it's has great special-effects & that about it,the acting is very sad & very bad...

My dominating review. "Eh" (way to go, that was well thought out). Not great, but easily watchable.

I'll put it on par with Independence Day. It will probably be played over and over on TNT in a few months.

Word of Mouth amongst the average film goers seems to have been great from what I've heard. Haven't heard a negative comment outside of forums, and there was a load of clapping during our showing.

Also, I don't get what people have against the acting, it was more than effecient, Cruise was good, Dakota was great. Some of the lines they were given kind of blew, but the acting itself was solid.

Actually, come to think of it, I don't know what most people have against the movie. The script was a little weak (it's a family road trip movie, with aliens), the acting, effects, characterizations, and direction were fine.

Alas, for me it was one of the more satisfying film going experiences this year, after feeling slightly let down by Sin City (like it a lot, mind you, but something about it didn't ring right), annoyed by Madagascar and completely let down by Episode III (An improvement over I and II, but still incredibly disappointing. Vader Coaster sums up a lot of it)... but then there haven't been a whole lot of worthwhile movies this year (with Batman to the rescue.).

Oh, and so far, the movie has made $204m worldwide.

Loved it, even with the crap ending scene (and I'm not referring to the demise part). Fave movie of the year by far. Special effects were very convincing, the acting for the most part was spot on and it was just damn creepy as hell.

Just close your eyes and pretend they're all crying.

It makes it better.

I liked it alot more than I had figured I would. Dark, dank and had a feel to it very much like the old british post- nuclear war movie Threads. Coldest Spielberg sc-fi movie I've seen, and this should look incredible on DVD.

Just saw this Friday and was very disappointed.

I realize it was supposed to faithful to the book (which I haven't read, but I'm familar with the general outlines of the story) but I found the movie to be very depressing and pointless.

Do we still need to use spoiler tags at this point? Edited to add a warning.

Spoilers

Aliens come from the sky and nothing we can do can stop them, so we're slowly slaughtered and used for food? What really brought this home to me was the only really affecting part of the movie (aside from the amazingly well done initial setup of the alien's abilities) was the scene where they van is mobbed. This was the first time during the movie when I was completely drawn in because of the expertly done HUMAN drama. But the rest of the movie, while experienced through the eyes of a human family, really shows no meaningful effect from human action. How is anyone supposed to relate to this? What meaning is this supposed to impart? If you come up against a superior force you're going to die unless some wild-ass dumb luck deus ex machina affect saves you? Well who cares if you have no ability to affect the outcome?

That was my biggest problem with the movie which, naturally, made all the illogical moments stand out even more. I don't have a problem with Ray figuring out how to get a car working, but no other mechanic in the city figured this out? There are tons of people who work on their own cars, and lots of auto shops around. Even by word of mouth you should have seen some other cars moving. And of course the video camara made no sense either. I just kept getting pulled out of the movie because I kept seeing things that just didn't make any sense within the movie's logic (as I understood it).

The acting was, I thought, all pretty good (though Tim Robbins was kind of uninspired...I thought an earlier poster's comment about Mystic River was pretty funny), but because humans had no effect on the aliens except to fill their tummies, they didn't have anything to really do. So I guess in that sense they were all static stereotypes, but that's only because they had nothing to grow into.

The special effects were pretty good too, I thought. Speilberg created a real sense of horror for me with people just being blown up/vaporized right on the screen like that. Scary stuff.

Ultimately, I just didn't feel the movie really had anything interesting to say to me, and I'm sorry I took off early from work just to see this.

Spoilers

It would have been nice if they'd played up the son's wanting to join the army a little more. He just seemed stupid rather than normal during most of the movie.

I didn't have a problem with the ending because I never thought he was dead, and was always expecting him to either be there after they got to the mom's house, or to show up right after they did. What I had trouble with is the idea that a big city like Boston wasn't as wasted as the little farmland like area where the Tim Robbins character was holed up at.

Possible Spoilers

My god, I can't believe how badly written this movie was. Are we supposed to believe that no one could have found ANY of the Tripods underground before the invasion? Especially if they were buried for many years? And if water, bacteria etc. is what killed them, then why didn't they get sick and die when they came here before to bury the Tripods? If a regular guy like me can notice these plotholes, how could no one involved with the films production notice them? Or did they not care? Sigh.

Those aren't plotholes, they're logic leaps. It isn't explained but it's all about how much you read into it. If they can transfer stuff via lightning, whose to say how long they were actually there.

SS followed the book

bacteria and viruses mutate on a regular basis and would change over millions of years. This is why there is no cure for AIDS or the common cold and why all the flu viruses come out of Asia.

Discussion of possible spoiler

I had a problem with them not getting damaged (especially in LA with all the seismic activity) but I assumed they got sick from us, so if the tripods were planted before we were widespread upon the earth, then that would be why they didn't get sick...and possibly why they didn't think they would get sick when they came back.

I just got back from seeing it. Two minor parts that I didn't understand:

1.

2.

2 is yet another sloppy do nothing with it plot point

One of the few times I've ever been suckered by Rotten Tomatoes. I know RT is not the bible, but I've seen some great movies I had never heard of based on many recommendations on that site. How in the world "War" is currently at 72% is beyond me. This movie was a rental at best. During the basement scenes my wife was fidgeting like crazy and saying, "This is so stupid." She never does that in movies. I can see how someone might have fun watching this, but I couldn't get past some very boring moments of been-there-done-that and logic issues.

I did think the music was awesome, though.