War of the Worlds: Movie Review

2005. 16+ Amazon, PG-13 on IMDb  

“With infinite complacency men went to and fro over this globe about their little affairs, serene in their assurance of their empire over matter.”  

War of the Worlds opens with Morgan Freeman (who also appears with Tom Cruise in 2013’s Oblivion) narrating the above words from HG Wells’s 1898 War of the Worlds novel—a must-know quote for sci-fi fans. You’re welcome.   

Wells’s book was set in the UK of his time, while this film shifts to the modern-day US. The original story follows a young man getting his wife to safety, while this reimagined version instead follows Tom Cruise’s single-dad character, Ray, who’s learning to take responsibility for his kids through the alien invasion. Ray must grow from a self-absorbed coward who doesn’t feed his kids properly, into a hero.   

The movie’s first half has a 90’s-style feel to the tension as the aliens arrive and begin to wreak havoc. The character acting is quite decent, but Dakota Fanning at 10 years old or so especially nails the scared-innocence look that makes the audience feel what she’s feeling and connect deeply with her. 

Still thinking of the first half, seamless visual effects envision several suburbia getting destroyed to satisfy the “what if boring life got blown up?” scenario. The violence is mitigated by no blood and gore since people simply dissipate when the aliens shoot them.   

With this, I thought at first that PG-13 made sense, or perhaps 14A just to be totally safe. Then the movie takes a sudden 16+/18A turn with extended, sickening silent tension until horror kicks in and the momentum builds to an all-out massacre. At this point, I felt betrayed as a viewer—and fast-forwarded a lot—because the implied genre-promise given in the first 10% of the movie wasn’t followed through. To better prepare the audience, the beginning needs much more sinister foreshadowing to present the right promise (for the right audience) and payoff.   

So, this movie is not so much for the sci-fi fan as for the survival horror fan, akin to I Am Legend starring Will Smith, 2007, or The Tomorrow War starring Chris Pratt, 2021. I label this horror because in said genre, the inciting incident “will be an attack by the monster, which sets up the obligatory climax, which is the ultimate confrontation between your lead character victim and the seemingly indestructible monster” introduced in the inciting incident.” (The Story Grid, Shawn Coyne, p 161). Horror.  

The protagonist, Ray, is in an active role only to battle one alien, not them all. The ultimately passive victory ends up lacking power, which is the same as I found with the book. That said, the movie maintains the book’s same twist subtly set up right at the beginning. It snags the reader’s “Aha!” moment, but quickly dissipates into, “…oh” because the protagonist doesn’t personally conquer all the monsters. In that respect, even the horror genre isn’t fully paid off.   

I see why the script writers attempt to have Ray undergo an intense internal battle not present in the original book, in order to round out the story. But to resolve both battles, the external passive victory in the sci-fi realm needs to provide readily accessible irony or symbolism to the viewer. Which it doesn’t. Unless you think about it for a long, long time. Too long.  

IMDb gives it 6.5/10 stars. I’d say 5/10, if only because the editing, special effects, and acting still have merit.   

Review written by: Jazmine Lawrence, Captain (Retired, RCAF), BSc Honours Physics, MA (Theology) student, future sci-fi author