War of the Worlds

Director: Steven Spielberg

Year of Release: 2005

Lead Actor: Tom Cruise

Running Time: 116 mins

Genre: War/Science-Fiction

Review by Fraser Green

Steven Spielberg and Tom Cruise have teamed up again to bring us a very good re-creation of the 1953 film, The War of the Worlds. Starring Tom Cruise (Top Gun, Mission Impossible), Dakota Fanning (Hide and Seek), Justin Chatwin (Taking Lives) and Tim Robbins (The Shawshank Redemption, Catch a Fire) this cast do the job with Robbins being the most impressive.

Ray Ferrier (Tom Cruise) is a divorced dockworker and less-than-perfect father. Soon after his ex-wife and her new husband drop of his teenage son Robbie (Justin Chatwin) and young daughter Rachel (Dakota Fanning) for a rare weekend visit, a strange and powerful lightning storm touches down. Shortly after this storm, Ray is confronted by a strange earthquake from where one of the lightning bolts struck the ground 26 times. He soon finds out that this earthquake was the rising of a machine that “came from some place else”. The running and terror begins as this extraordinary battle for the future of humankind is seen through the eyes of one American family fighting whose only mission is to survive it, not only from the alien invaders, but also from their fellow humans.

This film enforces a genuine amount of fear and terror even if it isn’t trying to. The characters are well defined and the film displays decent humour even though it is very serious. The action or suspense sequences are very well filmed on top of the great special effects on offer. Tim Robbins plays his role excellently however his section of the film does seem to drag on for a bit too long. I also thought that Dakota Fanning’s character screamed way too much and it did get to the point where you wanted her to die. But, she does get better as the film progresses. Some of the shots in the film are stunning however, I did feel that it tried to be action packed and didn’t succeed in that. I feel that it was fine as it was. Not a masterpiece of a film, but another one definitely worth watching by director Steven Spielberg.

My Rating: 3 and ½ stars

~ by cade14 on September 22, 2007.