Ray gets more than he bargained for when his ex drops off the kids at his apartment while she goes out of town. Alien tri-pod machines are rising up from under ground, where they have apparently been hiding for thousands of years, and are now laying waste to all of human kind.
Ray and the kids join droves of others who are running for their lives while all available military force is thrown at the merciless invaders. Nothing seems to be able to stop the alien force as it smashes everything in its path and obliterates all humans that it encounters.
Spielberg's remake loses the religious motif, the Cold War "patriotism", and some of the campier aspects of the storyline from the original. In fact, very little of the original films story is in tact here at all. On the other hand, some aspects, like the alien tripods, are actually closer to the original story than the 1953 film was. Plus there's modern special effects which are far more realistic than those in the original movie.
But at the same time, while there is no ambiguity about what Earth and its inhabitants are facing, the same sense of apocalyptic despair is not achieved here as in the original. Some of the more subtle and effective imagery is now replaced with non-stop straight forward action and violence. Plus there's Tom Cruise, who doubtfully understood that he was acting in a work of fiction rather than a documentary. I wonder when he plans to finance adaptations of some of L. Ron's books.
At any rate, this version of War of the Worlds is an entertaining, visually stimulating film that is worth 116 minutes, even if not on par with the original in every respect.
3 nut bar survivalists out of 5
Rated PG-13 for frightening sequences of sci-fi violence and disturbing images.
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