War of the Worlds

H.G. Wells’ classic sci-fi story, War of the Worlds was thrilling and remained exciting to many people throughout the 20th century. In 2005, people decided to revive this classic and put it in the theaters. This was a mistake. The director of this movie was the legendary Steven Spielberg. Granted, most of his movies are above average but this movie was not part of his greater works. With such a great plot, director, and actors such as Tom Cruise in this movie, one would expect it to be a great movie.

War of the Worlds will be a unforgettable event in literary history. It was broadcast on the radio for the first time in October 30, 1938. The events from the original War of the Worlds was so frightening that it literally scared people out of their houses; the most that the film War of the Worlds provided was an occasional loud boom that shocked people. An original voice recorded episode of War of the Worlds easily beat a film production of the novel which cost 132 million dollars.
The movie begins with a dull and gloomy mood and it quickly introduces an average American man as the protagonist. The film quickly lays out the main character’s back story and then lets the invasion begin. This is where the movie climaxes but also plateaus. The remaining plot of the story could easily be inferred. The plot climaxes once again towards the end of the film but once again, it sharply plateaus when a bad ending emerges. Due to such the film having such a great variation from the novel, one may expect a different ending but unfortunately, one was not given. The protagonist in the novel had a strong motive to survive; to see his love once again. The protagonist in the film however had a much less significant goal; to return his kids to their mother.

War of the Worlds was a legendary classic to both the new and old generation of readers. Because of this, when one watches this film they have high expectations, expectations that this film failed to meet. For starters, the actors in this movie were, to be blunt, bad. The reactions that they put on during the action sequences and emotional sequences were fake and unnatural. Viewers cannot relate to such performance. The fact that they used a skilled actor such as Tom Cruise to act with other inexperienced actors was another mistake. His skills dwarfed their acting skills and made it plainly visible how bad the acting was.

Honestly, the movie is not so bad, the first 60 minutes were tolerable and maybe even exciting but the final 73 minutes were horrible. The effects were overdone and cheesy. Perhaps expectations for this movie were set to high, a level that it simply could not meet. After one hundred seventeen minutes of watching this movie, anyone who has not read the novel will not read the novel.


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