War of the World Review
*minor spoilers*
Like my title points out, the film is definitely worth seeing... in theaters. The almost-perfect visuals and sound FX in this film are more than worthy of self-indulging yourself with when properly represented via huge screen and eardrum-busting speakers but after seeing it in theaters I see no reason to rent let alone buy this movie for home viewing (unless you happen to have access to a personal theater).
I do have to admit that the acting by Cruise, Fanning, and... that guy who plays the teenage son (sorry kid) is worthy of praise. Tom does a fantastic job at portraying a flawed father, Dakota is an excellent wide-eyed screamer, and whats-his-name shows reason behind his nearly constant acts of rebellion. As for the many, MANY stereotypical extras in the film... i'd rather not discuss there skills.
I found the mix of end-of-the-world chaos and small-family values a great concept but it seems that the film did the complete opposite of what I thought it would do and put a little to much emphasis on THE FAMILY! I was worried that "WAR" was going to over-do the Hollywood explosions and mayhem and I think Spielberg did too. So instead he watered down the destruction with moments of family drama, and did a good job, but left in to many scenes of bland, quiet, nothingness that I don't think anyone one the face of the Earth would have whilst under alien attack!
While on the subject of the alien attack I will now point out that IT is this films biggest let-down in my eyes. The film points out more than ounce that our ET friends had been planing this attack for "a million years" thus explaining the tripods being underground. But if they had been planning for so *&^# long WHY DID THEY DIE SO STINKING EASILY!!! They apparently have the ability to build robots and lasers (I'll discus those later) but they don't seem to understand the concept of GAS MASKS (haven't they ever seen star wars?). When the aliens made there climactic appearance in the basement I nearly fell out of my seat! Firstly I could not believe that the evil, heartless, villains of the film were cute little bouncy frog men and that they had no high-tech alien devices with them what so ever. Tom could have beat them to death with his bear hands for goodness sake and the same could probably be said for DAKOTA!!!
Moving on to the aliens apparently one and only success, there weapons of mass destruction. One: I was sad to see that the tripods were the ONLY real threat, I expected at least a little variety. Two: if there intention was to use human blood as, what i expect to be, fuel and/or fertilizer, why make the tripods primary weapon a ray that turns them into useless ASH!?! Three: at first I thought why would these seemingly intelligent aliens say "Hay I know! Why don't we barrry some robots underground on this COMPLETELY DEFENCLESS planet and WEIGHT a million years for these stupid monkeys to evolve into intelegent beings... and THEN take over!" then i realised that they must have needed people to grow in numbers and then farm them like cattle for ther blood. If so: why couldn't thay use dinosoar blood?!?
Well i gues i should stop ranting now. So just incase i lost you earlyer: It has some BIG holes but if you stay just on the surface its a good movie and you should go see it when you get the chance.
Like my title points out, the film is definitely worth seeing... in theaters. The almost-perfect visuals and sound FX in this film are more than worthy of self-indulging yourself with when properly represented via huge screen and eardrum-busting speakers but after seeing it in theaters I see no reason to rent let alone buy this movie for home viewing (unless you happen to have access to a personal theater).
I do have to admit that the acting by Cruise, Fanning, and... that guy who plays the teenage son (sorry kid) is worthy of praise. Tom does a fantastic job at portraying a flawed father, Dakota is an excellent wide-eyed screamer, and whats-his-name shows reason behind his nearly constant acts of rebellion. As for the many, MANY stereotypical extras in the film... i'd rather not discuss there skills.
I found the mix of end-of-the-world chaos and small-family values a great concept but it seems that the film did the complete opposite of what I thought it would do and put a little to much emphasis on THE FAMILY! I was worried that "WAR" was going to over-do the Hollywood explosions and mayhem and I think Spielberg did too. So instead he watered down the destruction with moments of family drama, and did a good job, but left in to many scenes of bland, quiet, nothingness that I don't think anyone one the face of the Earth would have whilst under alien attack!
While on the subject of the alien attack I will now point out that IT is this films biggest let-down in my eyes. The film points out more than ounce that our ET friends had been planing this attack for "a million years" thus explaining the tripods being underground. But if they had been planning for so *&^# long WHY DID THEY DIE SO STINKING EASILY!!! They apparently have the ability to build robots and lasers (I'll discus those later) but they don't seem to understand the concept of GAS MASKS (haven't they ever seen star wars?). When the aliens made there climactic appearance in the basement I nearly fell out of my seat! Firstly I could not believe that the evil, heartless, villains of the film were cute little bouncy frog men and that they had no high-tech alien devices with them what so ever. Tom could have beat them to death with his bear hands for goodness sake and the same could probably be said for DAKOTA!!!
Moving on to the aliens apparently one and only success, there weapons of mass destruction. One: I was sad to see that the tripods were the ONLY real threat, I expected at least a little variety. Two: if there intention was to use human blood as, what i expect to be, fuel and/or fertilizer, why make the tripods primary weapon a ray that turns them into useless ASH!?! Three: at first I thought why would these seemingly intelligent aliens say "Hay I know! Why don't we barrry some robots underground on this COMPLETELY DEFENCLESS planet and WEIGHT a million years for these stupid monkeys to evolve into intelegent beings... and THEN take over!" then i realised that they must have needed people to grow in numbers and then farm them like cattle for ther blood. If so: why couldn't thay use dinosoar blood?!?
Well i gues i should stop ranting now. So just incase i lost you earlyer: It has some BIG holes but if you stay just on the surface its a good movie and you should go see it when you get the chance.