Movie Review - War of the Worlds

When I heard that Spielberg was doing a remake of The War of the Worlds I was filled with both excitement and apprehension. The original War of the Worlds has always been one of my favorite movies and I was thrilled with the idea of a remake. But I kept remembering the last remake Spielberg did of another favorite movie of mine, The Haunting. I was extremely disappointed in that movie. But the signs going into War of the Worlds were pretty good. We have Spielberg and Cruise teaming up again. Critics seemed to like this movie and word of mouth was pretty good.

This War of the Worlds movie does not stray very far from the original version. The plots the same but instead of showing the events from a military view it shows it from the eyes of an average Joe.

Unlike the over blown special effects of The Haunting the special effects in this one are not over blown and they do not take away from message of fear and dread.

In terms of the acting, Dakota Fanning did a great job. It’s quite hard to believe that she is only 11 years old. Tim Robbins gave an excellent performance, though his screen time was too short. I thought that Tom Cruise did a pretty descent job as the caring father trying to protect his children, though it wasn't his strongest role to date.

I guess the only complaint that I have is that the end came rather abruptly.