De H.G. Wells: La guerra de los mundos

The problem with disaster movies is the fact you always have at least one scene where a character loses it. A scene where they spout how they question what they used to believe in, how they've lost faith, and show them on the brink of giving up (if you're a side character you do give up and die.) It's the scene that's supposed to pass as deep because it talks about issues and beliefs (maybe religion), where a character bleeds their soul in front of the camera. This rendition of War of the Worlds is scene after scene after scene of people I never cared about talking the cliché talk I've seen in other (better) movies.

But through all of its dialogue heavy confessionals, it never resonates as coming from real characters with real fears and concerns. It's the archetype priest (sorry, pastor) whose faith is challenged; the archetype rabid military commander who practically foams at the mouth with his battle obsession; the archetype everyman average Joe astronomer who lives to see the happy ending.

"Scientists win every war" the commander spouts, a valid point worthy of being explored (like many points in the film, I might add), but less than a minute later the film throws it away completely. I guess an elaboration is too much to ask. So we wind up with a series of vague statements that are supposed to pass as character development and provocative themes. It's just amazing that for all its talk the movie barely matches the depths of a Michael Bay action film.

All of the dialogue the characters are forced to recite lacks any real sense of valid observation regarding the real world. Nowhere are the details of everyday life that convince me that these characters genuinely reached this point in their lives, that they came to these conclusions on their own. It all comes across as undeveloped words for unexplored ideas that a writer rushed into a screenplay and into their mouths. It offers nothing more than surface level observations about society, organized religion, governments, the military. For the price you'd pay for the rental, you can probably get a more provocative conversation going over a 1.A.M. meal at Denny's with the regulars.

Unfortunately, a low-budget independent film can't really afford to lose the audience on a plot and character level since they can't afford to give an ambitious project like War of the Worlds the epic scope the effects require. The imagination of HG Wells has proved difficult to recreate on the silver screen, and films based on his novels have a tendency of pushing the boundaries of special effects. It's no surprise this movie cannot compete with ILM's spectacular display of destruction in Spielberg's version. The film just does fine with static shots of the aftermath, featuring nicely done composite shots that have a nice old-school matte painting vibe. The more dynamic effects (the aliens, the war machines), unfortunately, clearly show the budgetary limitations.

But, you know, it's not the lesser quality of the special effects that bothered me . . . it's the changes made to the design of the war machines. The War Machines resembled giant mechanical crabs, which I have to say is the most offensive design to cross a fan of the novel. At least the 1953 movie made an effort to make the War machines look other worldly – they would seemingly float and hover as they brought their destruction from city to city – and there was a fleeting reference to the tripod nature of them. The charm of the tripod design is the fact that it is alien to earth. Most creatures have an even number of legs: we walk on two legs, dogs and cats walk on four legs, arachnids walk on eight legs – what walks on three legs? A six-legged war machine lowers the Wells vision to cheesy monster movie featuring a giant insect.

Lastly the editing bothered me with its lazy fade-to-black transitions between scenes that I already felt had no sense of timing or rhythm and just dragged on. It just felt uninspired, monotonous, and redundant. It was like reading a story that used only simple sentences that never rose above "subject-verb-period" complexity. Editing is an opportunity to accentuate the on screen events, and provide an addition level of narrative depth through juxtaposition of images (which a novel of Wells' caliber requires). But in this movie adaptation, the editing is as interesting as watching a slide show in power point. Fade to black, and fade out with this review.

War of the Worlds(2005) is far from the best version, coming from someone who has a lot of fondness for the 1953 film, but I don't think it was that bad. The Asylum are notorious for making atrocious movies, most of them without any redeeming qualities whatsoever. War of the Worlds is not one of the worst, in fact alongside I Am Omega, #1 Cheerleader Camp and When a Killer Calls it is one of their better movies. If War of the Worlds 2 is a sequel to this, that is a thousand times worse than this. It does have its major problems almost certainly, the dialogue has certainly been much worse before with Asylum's movies but apart from some very well-thought out moments it is often too talky and aimless here. Other problems are that the special effects are terrible, Jack Busey overacts dreadfully and the score is generic and forgettable. On the plus side, the photography is a far cry from the slipshod quality you come to expect from The Asylum and the scenery and settings are beautifully evoked, or so I think. The story has moments where it is slow but there are also some thrilling moments and the ending works much better than it does in Spielberg's film. The characters aren't the most interesting on the block but generally they do have some likability, Victor actually is a well-rounded character. And the acting is better than average, Busey excepted. Thomas C.Howell is a commanding lead, I have read reviews complaining about over-exaggerated gestures(ie.flailing arms) but actually I find that more true to his performances in The Da Vinci Treasure, The Day the Earth Stopped and War of the Worlds 2. Tinarie Van-Wyk Loots is underused but she is very sexy and brightens up the screen whenever she appears, her nude scene didn't seem all that out of place to me. Of the supporting roles, Rhett Giles stood out, this is a man who has been in a lot of rubbish but has obvious talent that shines through even in those films. His performance is a huge part why Victor was as likable as he was to me. In conclusion, I hate Asylum's movies with a burning passion but I was actually pleasantly surprised by this one(just making this point before I get accused of being a "shill of the company" or "friend of the director"). 6/10 Bethany Cox

I felt like I was watching an example of how not to make a movie. I think the director filmed it in his back yard! There was no real plot.

Terrible script.

Terrible acting.

The worst production I have ever witnessed. A couple of bad CG effects and then the rest of the movies was spent walking around in what looked like a junk yard.

I don't normally write reviews to movies but was moved to warn everyone about this one.

Life is to short to waste your time with this movie!

...with the above comment. It is WELL acted and more about the change that overcomes some of the characters because of the impending extermination. A little bit of it appears in the Tom Cruise/Tim Robbins scenes in Spielberg's version but this version is much more about the effective changes and bringing out of both human heroism and brutishness. The 1953 and the two 2005 version all have very positive things going for them and are all worthwhile films, it is fascinating viewing all three versions and making comparisons. Really touching to see Gene Barry (Clayton Forrester, the hero in the 1953 version) at the end of the Spielberg version.(Don't think that is a spoiler!)

I've given this film a vote of 6/10 but i would have been quite happy to give it a much higher rating if the SFXs had been anywhere near as good as the acting and script,from almost the start of the film you can see they had problems with their budget not enough money for extras set design etc..and the cgi for alien "quadpods" was'nt that great though the actual design of them was very good... In the broadest sense the story is very similar to the Spielberg film but where his film was full of clunky plot holes and flaws in the script i found myself very surprised that this version made much more sense than Spielbergs and as for the acting well there were a few god awful actors in it but the lead C Thomas Howell out shone Tom Cruise by a mile i really was'Nat expecting much but enjoyed it more than i thought i would