War of the Worlds (2005). Watch Out for the Death Ray.
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- Опубликовано: 29 сен 2024
- Stam Fine Reviews looks at Steven Spielberg's 2005 remake of War of the Worlds, a film that follows the basic plot of the novel by H.G. Wells reasonably closely, but also updates it for contemporary times.
Tom Cruise stars as dockworker Ray Ferrier, who’s trying to get his kids to the safety of a ruined Boston full of aliens. I suppose he means well.
Cool That Gene Barry and Ann Robinson Appeared in The Film. As They Both Were The Prominent Actors in The Original 1953 Film. Gene Barry as Dr. Clayton Forrester and Ann Robinson as Sylvia Van Buren.
The film just stops when they get to Tim Robbins house
Tim Robins and Morgan Freeman were in this? Maybe it was just a fever dream in Zihuatanejo.
Bruh
Jeff Wayne’s musical version is still the best. The least said about the BBC’s version the better.
The tripods' war cry is the best thing about this movie. For sheer visceral terror they got that spot on, even if it's nothing like the one described in the book.
'What if Aliens were assholes' - Mars Attacks.
There were no bodies on the crashed plane because they all got vaporized before it crashed. At least, that's how I always understood that scene.
I thought we were supposed to assume they'd all been methodically abducted.
No dust.
The real reason there were no bodies is because it's PG13.
It's a hand wave and there was no legitimate reason for there not to be mangled corpses strewn around.
Remember the clothes con the sky scene? 😂
No apparently it's because the plane was in the storm when another alien was landing on earth the plane was struck by the lighting and so it crashed into the house where it still I's atleast it is today.
Robby needed a right hook back into reality.
"I wanna fight space terrorists, DADDDDD!!!"
Jeff Wayne's double album musical version is way more visceral and engaging, and you can enjoy it like a podcast, or like the original ... a radio programme. $0.02
This was a pretty good movie but would have been SO much better with a credible lead! This is some of the strangest Tom Cruise acting on film - his character choices were just weird! The scene where he makes peanut butter sandwiches - nobody acts like that! What an odd bloke he is!
I still find the movie quite a disturbing watch.
Society is falling to pieces, people are killing one another and the Aliens are killing everyone.
The scene where the alien tripod appears at the top of the hill whilst 1000s of people below are unaware and hoping for salvation....then the bellows out its war cry....still an uncomfortable watch.
The only more disturbing take I have seen of the Wells classic is the Anglo/French TV version which will have you reaching for the anti-depressants
The whole first act of this film is a masterclass.
The murder scene in the basement while Dakota sings Hushabye Mountain is still one of the most chilling film moments I've ever seen. This really pushed its PG-13 rating.
Great review, you're always so creative with your humour. I'm a massive fan of sci fi and although the original is a lot older than I am, it still an enjoyable movie. The trailer for this at the time made it feel like just another Tom Cruise movie where Tom Cruise played a Tom Cruise archetype.
During one of my Midshipman Training cruises, in San Diego, back in 1986 (I believe) I met several people from the Navy who worked on Top Gun. The universal opinion of Tom Cruise was that he was an a-hole. There was a story going around that he was kicked out of the wardroom on the USS Enterprise, because he was acting like he really was a pilot, and not in a Method kind of way.
Remember his rant someone recorded on their phone, I imagine he's like that lol.
Awright Stam. Why am I expecting a video about Cheers in the near future? You dropped the name mate and now I’m looking forward to that monster video. Another Stam Fine movie review. Love your work.
"The chances of" ... "Marmite ..."
😆🤣😂
Love your work Sir!
This movie would be fine if it wasn't called 'War of the Worlds'
That way the movie title would be left for someone to make an adaption of the H.G. Wells novel set in the late 1800s
I would really love to see an adaption that has tripods matching the description from the novel. With heat rays and black smoke missiles vs breach loading artillery. And no forcefields!
Ogilvy was a famous astronomer in the novel.
A beam that turns flesh to dust but leaves clothes, would also leave a skeleton....
If someone reedited this movie using the 1970s Jeff Wayne soundtrack then maybe I could get on board! :D
The BBC made a more, ahem, 'faithful' adaptation a couple of years ago. It was far from good, but it did at least include the black smoke.
An outfit called "Pendragon Pictures" released a straight to DVD version at about the same time as this one. It was painstakingly faithful to the novel, but it had a frayed shoestring of a budget, such that the special effects were like a rough cut for a film student's final project.
@@joneggelton How the BBC managed to make War of the World's boring I'll never know.
Shut up
I never understood why the Martian war machines were buried in the earth. They would have to have been there since before civilization constructed buildings on top of them. Which means they've been buried at least several hundred years. Why not invade when man still has the bow and arrow or swords. Did the Martians need man to reach a certain level of technological proficiency before they considered us suitable for attack.
It was the usual story of a change in the alien government cutting the funding half way through a major capital project.
@@IngieKerrThis is proof you have to dig deep to find comment gold!
This version should have never been made, Tom Cruise is a great entertainer, but this movie was an embarrassment to H.G. Wells and the worst War of the Worlds movie ever.
@@docbrown6550shut up
You gotta admit this one does have a lot of unsettling moments.
Great flick. Very enjoyable. Only downside was the annoying teen whining at his dad the whole time. Wouldn't have been against him getting turned into a pile of dust...he would have at least been quieter.
This could have been a great movie... except the kids. Ugh, the kids were the worst part. You get the emo son who wants to die and you get the annoying soy-brained daughter who doesn't know when to shut up. Ray was right to split with his wife, I would too with kids that fucked up.
And the martians riding lightning to Earth? That literally makes no sense at all. And how did we never find the martian war machines buried under the ground? Especially the ones directly under towns and cities.
This movie was just trash and it really shows with problems like that.
Shut up
Really strong for the first 45 mins. Sadly the stories ending is anticlimactic .
my favourite memory seeing of this at the cinema was the crowd throwing jaffas and popcorn tubs at the screen when the kid shows up at the end
Yeah, I will never understand why Spielberg went with *that* ending. It's almost as though he just couldn't bring himself to make such a bleak film and just had to Spielberg it up at the end.
Unless... While this is pure fan theory and I don't think it was the intention, just based on the film itself you could make an argument for the last 10 minutes being an "Owl Creek Bridge" dream, with Ray presumably dying while suicide-bombing the tripod. The super fuzzy focus and obnoxious bloom in the last scene, in particular, looks downright dreamlike.
@@jasonblalock4429Most Spielberg endings are trash.
My memory is of the scene when Cruise throws the sandwich at the window..... everyone laughed
13:10 Speaking of, I think the most interesting change in this version is Ray using the grenades. It's hard to avoid recognizing that, having seemingly lost *everything,* Ray deliberately decided to become a suicide bomber. He could not have possibly picked up that grenade belt with any real expectation of survival. WOTW05 is about how all-American Tom Cruise became a terrorist.
And this is even a valid adaptational choice, considering that the original War Of The Worlds novel was an open critique of Britain's colonialism at the time. So WOTW05 does the same, just subbing in America as the new dominant global power suddenly on the receiving end of an alien "shock and awe" campaign.
The war machines and Spielberg's creative directing are the real stars. Everything else grated.
Not enough tripod action.....
The spoof of this movie in Scary Movie 4 was genius especially the lullaby scene. Amazing.
"This is Detroit":
*Sirens blaring, weapons, fire, smoke and screaming*
@AndrewGivens "and this is Detroit after the attack" *the same footage and sounds we just saw, but now with Tripods*
The visuals were great and it had some genuinely disturbing moments. The problem for me is that it had the most annoying family of all time. I can handle flawed characters but Ray's kids were the most obnoxious little shits ever.
Shut up
First rate, as always. You need to do Mars Attacks now…
Man, this film looks so drab!
I was folding laundry and other stuff when I saw this film.
It was the perfect balance between making the laundry not boring and the movie not getting on my nerves.
I never had an inclination to watch it again.
It just seemed to be another entry in the spate of "Guy and His Family Escape a Big Disaster" films from the early 2000s.
Bruh
Nice! I really enjoyed the film. There was a rumour that the odd change about the alien vehicles being here all along was Tom Cruise's idea - something to do with his cultist beliefs. So it must be true. I thought the humans were being used as fertilizer, or maybe I'm thinking of some other version.
I saw it as the sci fi version of schindlers list
Lol, fuk.
The one thing the movie got absolutely right was the tripod design, and making them absolutely terrifying and seemingly unstoppable. The war cry is I believe the lowest frequency sound produced for a movie and sitting in the cinema you could feel your bones shake when it sounded.
The part where they're trying to get on the ferry when the martian war cry sounds, and the crowd turns to see the tripods cresting the hill with their search lights is one of the most amazing and terrifying scenes in cinema.
The main thing I dislike is having the Tripods come from under the ground as it's completely illogical. I know Spielberg just did it to be different from the other invasion movies, but it just doesn't make sense, as you would have expected at least one to have been unearthed. Also massive coincidence that these tripods have been buried for centuries under the sites of future cities that didn't exist at the time...
Tom Cruise is insufferable...despite being in some really great movies.
I really want to like this movie. But I disagre on the kids. They are obnoxious in an unreal way and the ending is too Disney. So a good effort, but certainly not perfect.
Shut up
There is only one real Cheers bar and that is the Bull & the Finch.
1.) What album is The Tom Cruise Song on ? 2.) Is that really the ending ? 3.) Jacket tied around the waist.
I thought it was disappointing. There are some excellent scenes but overall it felt like it could’ve been so much more. The kids are typical movie kids and their behaviour is annoying and unbelievable.
Shut up
I wonder if rays freinds survived if no then R.I.P
Yeah, but is Tom Cruise as good as Marlon Brando on the waterfront?
Next time I need to summarise Cruise's appearance on Oprah in just 3 words I'll know how. 🤣
War of the Slders Pal
Yeah, I thought the whole sequence with Tim Robbins in the basement dragged on a little too long.
The three more recent adaptations are all better, but this is a decent film. The underlying story is so timeless and ingrained in the public psyche, it's very hard to get it wrong, and Spielberg is a master. Cruise could have been anyone else, though, but he didn't flub it either.
its True i was the one who give him the phone books
The son's stupidity ruined the movie for me.
Shut up
I always enjoyed this film, certainly on initial release it was spectacular in the cinema. Ok it’s Tom Cruise, but there’s a lot to like here and in some of his later efforts like the MI series and Maverick.
👍👍👍🎥
Omg 3:33 it actually got cut out
Possibly cruises most miscast role, apart from the mummy.
Great review as always. One thing I realized with this film is how rarely Spielberg uses romance in his films. Instead of an annoying bad dad and his annoying kids, how much more memorable and involving would it have been with a love story like the original? The effects and production design are very good. It's just too harrowing for me to enjoy without any humor or humanity. There are no warm human moments to fall back on and break up the terror.
Shut up
Took my 14 year old lad to the pictures for this one and still have a few A3 promo posters too. I’m interested to hear your thoughts about it but I recall it was fkn bollox. Keep them coming Sir.👍😂📚☘️
Wasn’t this Toms first movie after he took over United Artists studios?
Like most Spielberg films, it’s vastly improved by not watching the last 5 minutes.
Bruh
Ray: they came from someplace else Robbie: What like Europe? Ray: NO ROBBIE NOT LIKE EUROPE!.
Rachel: There's gonna be tornados? Ray: ummm Yeah theres gonna be tornados tearing our A** apart Rachel: Oh Damm were doomed now.
If you watch the scene where tom cruise or ray drsteoys A tripod look at the one window that then blows open if you look at it closely you can see an alien looking out of it as if its saying *Wtf is happening right now OH SHIT OH SHIT WERE F*CKED NOW*
Hope you're gonna do The Asylum's version next! ruclips.net/video/IDeOgPuI1J8/видео.htmlsi=N6gG70UhaXn2WnUr
That "whatevs," tho.
Tripods aside, I don't really like this version. The humans just make me want to cheer on the martians.
Shut up
I have issues with this movie.
- Seems like it would've been a lot easier to defeat us if the aliens had chosen to attack Earth before we developed nuclear weapons.
- Cruise in 2005 still looked a bit too young on camera to have a son that old.
- I find both kids irritating which makes it somewhat difficult to care about them.
- The film's look is kind of washed out. It's almost like someone had the white balance adjusted slightly too far to the right on their old camcorder.
Still no HMS Thunderchild in a movie or TV adaptation
Original Victorian era invasion with HMS Thunderchild movie should have been made. 2019 television series in that timeframe just didn't deliver.
Wells, one of my favorite writers growing up before internet, I've always hoped for a War of the Worlds movie set in an alternate steampunk like England end of the 19th century or even turn of the century like the tabletop wargame, at least with the re-make of the Time Machine they started in the right century.
I didn't like it when it came out and watching your review just reminded me why it was. For me it's just one of those unnecessary retellings of a well-known story which, in my opinion, brings nothing new to it. I also thought that Tom Cruise was badly miscast in this movie (not as badly as in the later Reacher of course).
Did not like that version of the story, both kids were extremely annoying, as was Cruise
This movie (as much as I enjoyed the action sequences, which were Spielberg at his best) gave me several places to poke it. Not the ending Deus ex Machina of the microbes killing the aliens, as so many others jumped all over the movie about. The microbes killing the aliens was how the original book ended. However, the subterranean placement of the tripods, staged here on Earth millennia ago, to be used now in their conquest of the planet, that was the height of ridiculousness. If they sent their war machines to Earth long ago...why didn't they just take the planet then, when there was no resistance.
Now I've heard fans of the movie say it was a phased invasion, in that the aliens sent their armor and artillery ahead of them because their equipment were onboard fully automated vehicles that could accelerate faster across the cosmos, resulting in their arrival and automated placement hundreds or even thousands of years ago. Their biological operators, however, were aboard slower moving vessels. This, because of the limits of their biology, they launched at the same time, but flew slower, thus they arrived later. I guess that's not an entirely silly explanation, in fact I think it kinda works. In spite of the fact that these things would have needed to be buried miles under the surface to avoid detection once humans had the technology not only to dig to great depths, but also to do seismic surveys of the earth. Even then, I'm sure geologists would have been curious about these anomalous readings they were getting at different places all over the world.
Near the beginning of the movie, Ray lies down to sleep after work. I think the rest of the movie is his dream/nightmare and that's why several things don't make sense.
Another great Stam Fine review!
The guy in the Basement is scarier than the martians tbh
I don't like this movie, not because it's poorly made but because it's poorly cast. This is a dumb luck story so you need a main character plucky enough to survive, not a Tom Cruise hero type whose main contribution should have been replacing flash fried solenoids with other flash fried solenoids. But they work because he's Tom Cruise.
If 2012's John Cusack tried it, not only would they not have worked but people around him would have died. Not because he's incompetent but because he's John Cusack, see how this works?
My advice: Stop when you see the flaming train because that's the last bit of true spectacle.
Shut up
I was born 4 or 3 years after 2005 one was released
Nothing more jarring than seeing Tom Cruise dressed as a blue-collar worker; leather jacket, sneakers, a cap - Yeah sure he's a dock worker, good back story.
I didn't hate the movie but it didn't improve on the original. Both Spielberg and Tom Cruise was wrong for this movie.
The ending is kinda abrupt in both movies, a bit disappointing although I forgave the original movie for the lackluster ending. At the very least have a guy sneeze on the aliens or something, just don't make it out to be pure luck.
9:43 This car scene looks like it's from 'Police Squad' opening scene.
Bruh
The 1953 film was way better. I'll watch that if it's on, but I'll never watch this version ever again!
Shut up
Good special effects but it needed a rewrite. The alien ships being buried for millions of years, guess they were waiting til our guard was really down huh, was stupid. And the whole disfunctional family trope was long since played out back then.
Shut up
What's a phone book?
This version should have never been made, Tom Cruise is a great entertainer, but this movie was an embarrassment to H.G. Wells and the worst War of the Worlds movie ever.
It was a great action film
@@Tolstoy111 A lot of movies are filled with action that doesn't make it great, just look at the last Indiana Jones movie, it was an embarrassment to the franchise, but it had action but it flopped because it was a bad movie. Tom Cruise's War of the Worlds was not a good movie by any means, there are other War of the Worlds movies a lot better.
Or it could be a Keanu Reeves movie - like "The Day the Earth Stood Still"(2008).
Also awful.
@@titusmccarthytell me about it! The only bright spot was with John Cleese, but he got what? five minutes of screen time?
@@l.a.gothro3999 I don't remember. I just remember it was horrible. The original still stands today as a good movie.
I do enjoy a movie-specific theme tune remix. 👍
This movie was really AWFUL and made no sense. We didn't notice giant tripods buried in the ground when we built subways, sewers and other infrastructure? It's all about post 9/11 American fears which were largely unsubstantiated and reactionary. Dumb film.
Shut up
I don’t like this film. Well made but dour and dull
Shut up
Oh this is the one w/Tom Cruise....thought I smelled sulfer
Which one has K Reeves in it?
That would be the horrible remake of The Day The Earth Stood Still.
@@jeffnettleton3858 ohhh yeah _The Day The Earth Stood Still_ Right! Thank you! I can never remember the name of that movie & I don't know why... Oh...
This movie is so awful. I've never been so disappointed the children DIDN'T DIE as much as I was with this film. Every decision Spielberg made after the initial attack was awful. Not showing what was going on over that hill was a hate crime against the audience. I hate this movie.
Shut up
In 2005 this was an epic action sci-fi. Today, its a bit hard to watch the sticky acting... still, a blast of a movie.
AWFUL movie. JUST AWFUL.
@@titusmccarthy Shut up
@@FrenchFryCheese04 No. It was awful. Horrible. Stupid movie.
@@titusmccarthy you clearly had a poor childhood
@@FrenchFryCheese04 Nope. It was a great childhood. I loved Jurassic Park and think Spielberg's most intelligent movie was Munich. WOTW was awful, dreary junk
I just wish someone would make a proper adaption of the book. It really doesn't need any altering/updating at all. It's a classic and would really stand up today.
It was another terrible yank adaption of WotW.
I’m waiting anxiously for someone to make a movie true to the design aesthetic and time period of Jeff Wayne’s Musical Version of the War of the Worlds.
Having watched the review and thought about it - this could be Spielberg's attempt at doing a version of his "Night Skies", the proposed sequel of sorts to "Close Encounters", where a family is terrorized over the course of several nights by malevolent aliens. Spielberg split the script into two. One became "E.T.", the other "Poltergeist".
If not for the insufferable children, this movie would be one I would come back to now and again. No matter how many wins dad gets. No matter how many times he proves his capabilities to protect and take care of them, the kids are just straight up ungrateful little $hits in need of a smack. They’re just written and directed so terribly. ugh…
I didn't like this version, but then again I don't like most Steven Spielberg movies. I don't like Tom Cruise either. Double win!
Shut up
Sorry but the two ‘children’ are truly pains in the arse. I think I’d have ditched them both ! Otherwise lots of great moments and the sound from the aliens really hits the mark
Nope. I thought this was a pretty weak movie. The daughter was absolutely insufferable and the son not too far behind. Are there any faithful adaptations of the Wells' story? Thank you for the nod towards the Jeff Wayne s' musical. That is my favorite version.
Shut up
As a huge fan of the ‘53 version, this film was passable, but i would have enjoyed it way more if it had far less family drama, and if it hadn’t been a star vehicle for Tom Snooze 🫤