I had a great time watching the movie. One of the barometers I use is how often I check the time. Never once during the movie. The effects were great and the sound design was amazing.

Seeing Gene and Ann at the end of the movie was pretty damn cool. Nice touch.

Interesting how divided this thread has become on the movie. Very polar reactions, people either love it, or hate it. The one thing that seems unanimous is that the ending was a little out of left field, which makes me wonder if the George Pal version was met with the same reaction.

Well, I have no beef with it. But you do pose an interesting topic for consideration as I don't recall the George Pal version ever being criticized

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I really liked the first half of the movie but the second half was very anti-climactic from when the father and daughter get to the basement.

Then why would no cars work if they weren't running at the time?

I enjoyed it - a few minor issues, but overall I felt it was effective. Gotta love that old-school JW score with the strings and trumpets.

Would've liked it to be a bit longer (more build-up, conclusions) and as everyone's mentioned the son's role felt a little forced. And as much as I love Morgan Freeman, I think I almost preferred the narrator from the first teaser.

***1/2

I had problems with that too, but then I remembered a friend in NY, who at 34 had a 17 year old daughter ...

I guess it makes sense, probably Cruise's character was the highschool jock who knocked up his cheerleader sweetheart, they married, had another unplanned kid 6 years later and then it was really time for divorce ... it makes Cruise's character even more f'ed up.

I just didn't get this movie. I wanted to like it. I loved the special effects. I loved seeing the alien come out of the ground. I loved watching the bridge blow up while Ray is driving the minivan. But I still left the theater dissappointed. As mentioned before, the mob seen with the minivan was the only scene that drew me in. The rest of the movie seemed like Spielberg had a checklist for eveything he wanted in the movie and he just started making scenes to complete the list.

Because if you don't like it, everyone else must be either (a) wrong, or (b) knowingly conspiring to trick you into seeing a bad movie.

There are times when I like movies that most people hate and times when I dislike movies that most people love. I don't feel I've been tricked or suckered, but instead I recognize that I have this unique and subjective thing called taste, and that it varies from person to person... and that's okay!

Why are so many folks insisting on realism in a Hollywood movie about Alien Invasion?

The scene of the crowd shuffling along with Cruise & kids in the van was one of my favorite scenes. I have no doubt that mob mentality like that would take over. The ferry scene was the most terrifying of the movie, everyone turns around and sees these huge things coming right for them. It did slow down a bit during the long basement scene with Tim Robbins. The ending was a little too cute too, although we all must've seen it coming.

A couple of points:
1) It's been mentioned, but how did these machines remain undetected? We've dug subways, water mains, underground sewage pipes, etc. and never found one?

2) Not a great performance by Tom Cruise, probably the weakest I've seen him.

3) Why was Boston untouched? The aliens attack Bayonne piece of shit New Jersey, but not a major city like Boston?

4) I'm not complaining about this part, but I would like to have seen one of the sick aliens come out of the tripod still alive to get his ass kicked by the crowd. I guess it's just the J6P in me.

Things I liked first:
-It had a great sci-fi 1950s vibe. With Primer and WotW, sci-fi could be back on track.
-ILM really does its best work for SS.
-There some great moments like: the first tripod, tripod in the water, laser blasts that evaporate people.
-I loved how this was almost what you don't expect to see in an armegeddon film. No momuments being blown up, no military characters; just average joes.
-The whole gun sequence was expertly handled.
What I didn't like:
-First and foremost, the ending. Not the one where the alines are explained to die, but the human one. How didn't Boston get blown up? How did Robbie survive? Lame and SS sappy.
-Some moments were JP rehashed.
-I love David Koepp scripts but here wasn;t one of his best. Cruise's character did some dumb, unrealistic things. Like when the tripod try to eat Tom, everyone tried to save him, but a sceond earlier nobody tried to save the poor sap before him.
-How didn't Dakota not get eaten?
-Robbins character was okay at first, but toward the end of his appearance I was praying that something shut him up.
-I Criuse is the main guy in the flick, but no way an average joe could tell military what to do or take down a tripod.

I agree with the reviewers in DVDtalk's 30 min review of WotW podcast and Ebert. It was great entertainment like only SS can do, but it left you empty some way. Characters didn't grow, while not every film must have this, it would've made you care more. Pal's version of the ending was better. Many people clapped after the credits, so it will be big $$, but I'd give it a B-.

I really liked the movie. Have read 80% of the posts here and didn't see this brought up yet. Something that jumped out at me in the theatre: with all of that technology that the aliens possessed, wouldn't they have had infra-red or something more sophisticated than a snaking camera to look for humans with?

For space-faring aliens, they weren't all that bright, now, were they? I couldn't believe their probes didn't probe for heat signatures either. I thought the snake-eye sequence was silly, and didn't add that much tension for me (but I realize others were on the edge of their seats for this sequence).

They did. But the Infra-red system was offline. It had the flu.

The first half of the movie was really intense. Then the last half comes along and goes nowhere. Most of the action takes place off camera anyways. I was very disappointed in Spielberg. What I hoped would be a non-stop action movie about aliens taking over the world was about aliens taking over New Jersey. There is absolutely no scope to the war. I wanted to have the feeling that the world was in jeopardy. Dammit.

Count me among the "loved it" crowd. I won't defend it to those who dislike it, because I can understand much of the disappointment. But I thought the scope was perfect and personal, and I was compelled from beginning to end.

Possible spoilers here:

Wells orignal story was a cautionary tale, or allegory, told from the viewpoint of a British "everyman" character. Transpose the Martians for the British Empire, and the human (British) civilization the Martians were destroying for the indigenous inhabitants of British colonies.

It was a warning to those who were intellectually and technologically more advanced, that they were not indestructable because of their superior intellect and technology. Which is how the Martians (read British Empire) thought of themselves.

Spielberg just brought the story into todays world, transposed it to the U.S., and told it from an American "everyman" character's viewpoint.

Speilberg sets a lot of his stories in suburban settings, particularly in California. Why set this one in an area that's close to New York City, of all places? Why not Toledo, OH? Or Detroit?

In view of U.S. post-9/11 foreign policy, I believe Spielberg and Cruise decided to make WotW because they think the allegorical aspects are as true today as they were in Wells time.

FWIW, I must be an exception to most posters here. I don't particularly hate or love the film. I've seen better and I've seen worse. Often a lot worse.

Saw it.

It very well-realized for it's scope. I was very, very impressed with how well it depicted the chaotic frenzy. It's like a level above those Roland Emerich movies.

Speilberg's composition these days just blows me away. It's like every - single - shot has something to wow me.

Dakota Fanning was good. But I prefered the father/son relationship. I think it was kind of the center for everything. Robbie showing up in the end? I have no problems with it. Though I would have left feeling a lot different, had he not shown up.

It's inspiring that Speilberg has been making movies this long, and still has plenty of creative talent in'em.

I find it funny that Tom Cruise's character was the only person who knew what needed to be done in that respect. I know that most would not (I sure wouldn't) but it was still quite a coincidence that no one else thought to do that.

That's not a real negative, though. Just a funny nitpick.

Kind of hard to fix a solenoid when your broke down on the freeway. When else do you get a chance to see another car on the road? When they are driving thru the country? There were plenty of cars on the farry. With people inside. I doubt they were pushed on the farry.

Not to mention the camera crew had a working van, along with...well...a lot of the army.

True, forgot about the ferry and army trucks.

But, then again, if Tom Cruise was not the only person with a working car, what was the deal with the mob scene? Wouldn't some of these people have had working cars around too?