superspaceboy said:

LMFAO!

I saw it yesterday. It's an okay movie, I guess, provided one can buy Tom Cruise as a dock worker and can put up with Spielberg's usual annoying children that makes you wanna just strangle them to death.

As a disaster movie it works fairly well. And I like that a lot of the elements from the 1952 movie has been kept, like the mob fighting about mobile transportation, the close encounter in the basement, the probing eye getting chopped off in the basement and the hand falling out of the tripod at the end.

But there ARE a few things that I think you aren't supposed to think too much about, like the manner of the aliens' arrival on Earth.

There is no excuse for the ending, though. It just so happens that THE only place in Boston that has not been devastated (although there ARE ruined cars littered in the street) is the building where the main characters are going and the ONLY people that are not dead and have not run away are the people the main characters are going to visit.
[Edited 6/30/05 1:48am]

Byron said:

Sorry that things have been bad recently, I hope they improve soon

On the subject of Tom Cruise and the movie, following his recent comments on antidepressants and how he "knows" the history of psychiatry I don't think I'll bother seeing the film. He's a bit of an arse really!!

I saw it last night and loved it. The story isn't perfect. There's a story there alright and it carries the film through to the end, but just so. I can forgive that in a summer blockbuster type movie. What I didn't like was the need Koepp and Spielberg felt to pad the story with family drama. Ray's son flagging down the army trying to go into the battle scene in the midst of a family tiff was clumsy at best, and the ending - which is still true to the original story - emerges all too quickly. It's anticlimactic.

But as a pure piece of cinematic spectacle, it really is thrilling! I loved the tripod machines, the aliens, and the emergence of the machines from beneath the earth. The ferry scene really was stunning and, by turns, scary (as were many of the film's action scenes). I was hoping that they would somehow retain the sound of the machines from the 1950s version, but of course they didn't. It wouldn't have worked. But I did like the gutteral noise that summoned the aliens back to the machines.

I'm guessing if you liked Jurassic Park there's a good chance you'll like this one. Of all his previous films, it was closest in make and spirit to that one. All effects and action, and that's all you need. It's very intense and gory for a Spielberg film (the field o' remains is kinda nasty). I don't know why I'm still shocked to see parents bringing their children and infants into films like this, but I am. Two kids in my proximity clearly were not meant to see this type of film and were turning their heads and burying themselves into one of their parents.

Not perfect, but for summer blockbuster fluff, I don't think it can get much better than this. I'd give it 3.5 stars, and I'm seeing it again this weekend with my boyfriend. I couldn't wait to see it, and had to promise to see it again with him.

I still don't know how I feel about this movie. I watched it last night. The effect I thought were okay. Dakota was great but I wish she would stop screaming. The kid that played Tom's son was really good in a subtle way. Some of the action sequences were pretty good. I don't know. I don't think I'll buy it or even rent it when it comes out on DVD.


M

There were a lot of subtle things that I liked about the movie:

There were stretches where there wasn't a soundtrack, no music at all...only the sounds of destruction, the disturbing sounds that the alien "tripods" made (god, that was unnerving)...or silence. It helped create the feeling you were taking part in the invasion moreso than just watching it...

For once in a "disaster" movie, the main character doesn't end up being the hero and saving the world...he's just a shlub, fucking up as often as he succeeds.

The action scenes don't end up showing a neverending succession of famous landmarks and buildings being destroyed...instead, it shows ordinary, everyday neighborhoods and communities. Again, you feel more like it's happening to you because you're seeing familiar areas being affected. When you watch the White House or the Hollywood sign get destroyed, it doesn't pull you in quite as much or effect you on a subconsciously emotional level, and you end up feeling more like a spectator.

A lot of the action involving the "tripods" is pushed to the side, so to speak, instead of placed front and center on the screen (which would be typical)...which also helps give it that "You Are There" feeling, because if this were really happening to you, you wouldn't stand in the middle of the street staring while these things come rampaging thru town (which is how many disaster movies shoot their actions sequences)...you'd be constantly on the run, catching glimpses of the destruction, hearing the loudness of it surround you, and feeling nothing but fear and panic. Spielberg shoots a lot of the actions sequences in this manner...and it works.

Again, the special effects were tremendous...I never once found myself thinking "well, that looks like a model" or focusing on the obvious use of CGI...in fact, more times than not I found myself thinking "How the HELL did they do that??"...


The bad??..lol

The "family" ending was too pat...pure Spielburg cheese. And as someone mentioned above, how convenient that the part of Boston Cruise and family were heading to was left in relatively pristine condition compared to the ferocious destruction that takes place for 90% of the movie up until then...

The aliens themselves...they just didn't create the fear that their "tripod" machines do. Instead, they seemed...ordinary, perhaps? And showing them didn't really add anything to the movie, and in fact took away from it. Better that they had been kept from our view until the end.

Tim Robbins...unfortunately, during his brief time on screen, Tim Robbins never stopped being Tim Robbins in my eyes...and there are probably dozens of lesser known actors who could have pulled off his part just as well, if not better. I just didn't buy his character.

A few too many logic holes in the script...for instance, when Cruise takes his kids back to their mom's home after the first wave of attacks (mom isn't there), he decides to feed them food they packed from his house instead of eating food that's already there in the kids' own home...which is made even worse because all he has brought with him is peanut butter and condiments. And the kids don't just walk over to their own fridge and grab food, either...I couldn't quite get that part..lol

I agree with most of Byrons analysis.

The noice the tripods made were pretty startling and you are so right about the whole sandwich scene. I was thinking "Open the f'ing refrigerator."

The aliens were kind of cute. I didn't catch it until the last minute but they had 2 long arms and one leg. The whole "tubular thing" going into the basement was very reminiscent of the ABYSS and the whole water thing.

I really liked the whole ferry capsizing bit.


M

MIGUELGOMEZ said:

LoL...

Byron said:

Byron said:

What about the part in the movie when the alien is dressed as Rob Thomas and does Cruise Pulp Fiction style?

bkw said:

Must be in the director's cut...

I thought the movie was very well made. I don't even know how they filmed the shot with them fleeing in the car, and the camera is goin into the car, around it, behind it... etc while it's rolling along. Spielberg just knows how to film stuff, and grab performances out of people that reach intensity. he's also so much better at incorporating effects naturally into his movies than others who make these kind of genre films. Actually, he even knows how to film a regular conversation better than most other directors.

ufoclub said:

Yeah, the camerawork in that scene was impressive...

MIGUELGOMEZ said:

He made me want to strangle him!

Byron said:

But that scene was like in the old movie where the scientist and his girlfriend are hiding in a basement and suddenly the girl stiffens with horror as she feels something touching her shoulder. Then she spins around and screams

What she's seeing is a funnylooking li'l alien fella that also starts to scream and then runs away.

I kinda like that scene. It sort of suggests that although they are alien in appearence, they are just like us - just going to war in bigger and better fighting mnachines than what we have. It's like a metaphor fr, like, german soldiers during World War II or something. I think...

MIGUELGOMEZ said:

But it was also in the old War of the Worlds flick and that came long before the Abyss.

A lot of the movie reminded me of some of the 9-11 footage. That DID creep me out. i.e. people running with ash all over themselves, pictures of missing people up on boards.


M

RipHer2Shreds said:

Yes! It made me want the sodding kid to just die! DIE!
DIE, ALREADY!

But, of course... Despite going into an area that was consumed in a large fireball, he just had to turn up alive at the end.

MIGUELGOMEZ said:

I thought that particular bit was rather lame. Who on Earth has time to put up a poster about someone being missing when the martians are attacking! RUN!

RipHer2Shreds said:

Yes, somehow the whole harbour/ferry sequence is the one that's really stuck quite vividly in my mind. From the panic of the people as the Martians appeared on the hill overlooking the harbour, over the death and destruction to the clothes and ash flying through the night air.
[Edited 7/1/05 1:09am]

scififilmnerd said:

I was thinking something similar...thinking, "Who's gonna take the time to look over all those photos? Everyone's running scared!!"

scififilmnerd said:

I'm glad I'm not a member of your family!

Byron said:

I will go and see this movie, but I can't begin to describe how irritating i find Spielberg's insistence on saccharin endings. Leaving aside AI, which was just pure wank full stop, what for me were good films, like Minority Report were blemished by a vomit-worthy ending. I would have walked out of the cinema thinking, "what a great film!" and instead I walked out thinking, "why the fuck does he always do that?" I've read a couple of reviews of this latest film in the papers and they've both commented on the ending as being typically cheesy & unlikely.

Which pisses me off!

TheFrog said:

Agree with you 100%!

I watched this last night & left very disappointed.The movie had huge lapses of logic:

1.When everything electrical went kaput.How come that one video camera was still working?

2.How the hell did the son survive when the whole army around him was blown to smitherreens?

3.His ex-wife & her family convenintly survuing at the end completely unscathed?!

4.aliens investigating one house for a full hour?

I did enjoy the first hour.But as soon as they meet up with Tim Robbins it went totally flat.Btw, didn't the section of the alien ship that tried to suck up Tom Cruise look like a huge sphincter ?

On the whole, I liked it...
though I do agree with the criticisms Byron and others have already made.

stuff I liked...

The set pieces were great. The bit when the first tripod comes out of the ground
and then starts killing everyone. The bit on the ferry. The mob scenes where they
lose the car (also the bit where they take the car). The eye in the basement.
In fact any bit with the tripods in... and the sound they made!

stuff I didn't like...
The ending was a bit too 'happy' for my liking (considering what they went thru).
It seemed a bit short, and once the set up and main 'escape' sequences had played
out, it seemed to wrap up fairly suddenly. And I found the aliens themselves a
little disappointing (they should have been even more 'alien').

Overall I quite enjoyed it though. They really got the sense of fear going, and
the sheer scale of the tripods was great.

Do any of you know this one:



...and if so, how close is it's story to the original book by H.G. Wells?

Because I must admit that I have never read the original book by H.G. Wells, but I do have this 1978 musical version set in London in the eighteenth century and starring Richard Burton as a journalist who goes to London after the rout of humanity begins to find his belowed and arrives just in time to see her escape safely on a boat while he himself remains trapped on land and runs into a mad preacher he has to silence in order for the Martian probe not to find them - like Tom Cruise had to silence Tim Robbins in the new movie.

And in the original movie adaptation, the main character is a scientist and his girlfriend.

So what was the main characters in the original book?

I would guess the journalist, but what do I know?

Anyways, I think the next movie adaptation ought to be set in Victorian London. Imagine tripods on the loose in the 18th century? That would make for some quite interesting visuals!

And a lot of period costumes for the thousands of screaming extras, which would be very expensive, so... I guess that's why both movies have set it in contemporary times rather than the original setting.
[Edited 7/4/05 8:38am]

Byron said:

Team America: Martin Sheen and Tim Robbins

"We're guards"

"Yeah, we're guards"

Question for you, or anyone for that matter. I saw this lastnight.

Cohesive ending? Hardly. How in the world did that family survive in such a big city such as Boston? Didn't those roving eyes inspect Grandma and Grandpa's house like they did in the damn countryside? How is it possible that they all survived?

Darla said:

Oh yeah! That too!!