★★½ War of the Worlds (2005)

[Gino: 3.0 (sp), Twinkletoes: 2.0]

Twinkletoes says: "The more I think about this film the less I like it. First of all everything about the aliens was very campy. The ships seemed needlessly elaborate in their design. What the aliens did with the humans seemed straight out of a schlocky horror film. Sure it looked much better but it was all straight out of a 1950's sci fi film. Which by itself isn't a bad thing, but the film tries to couple this with a more somber and intimate story of a fmaily and how they are dealing with thsi crisis. It just didn't work for me. You either got to go one way or another. Up until the moment we see these alien things I was enjoying the heck out of the film, but soon after the reveal I was just left cold. It took something that felt very real and made it incredibly artificial. Second, the film seemed to run out of steam and was padded with a lengthy scene with Tim Robbins that seemed to belong in another film."

Gino says: "[I wrote this without reading Twinkletoes's review first.] There were good and bad things about this film, but on balance (especially after just watching 'The Island' clinker) it was fun. Let me give you some random impressions, mostly positive: Tom Cruise, while he is always kinda "tom cruise" on screen, he is still very good at his job. Spielberg, while he always inserts the divorced-family dynamic in his films, he does that very well. This was quite appropriately grim (esp for Mr. Spielberg), not pulling any punches (ok one punch was pulled). Also the invaders are pretty cool in this film, and I like the idea in general that they are there to exterminate all people AND they plan to do it basically by killing us one at a time. Finally, I thought it was smart that the film always sticks with the family, and doesn't cut between their story and say the presidents "crisis room" or something. Also a decidedly non-heroic resolution. I.e. this is definitely not "Independence Day". I think it shows a director who is obviously really versed in hollywood conventions but is still capable of surprising us with courageously bending those here and there. So, sounds like I really liked it, but I left it a half star short of a "recommendation" because, despite all that it was nothing really special."