Don’t read any further if you haven’t seen the movie and don’t want it spoiled. Seriously. This is your only warning.
Okay, so. Awesome movie. I was literally on the edge of my seat nearly the entire time, slack-jawed, eyes unblinking as the spectacle unfolded before me. Once it gets going, it is non-stop. Amazing. And what you think you see in the trailers, what you don’t see, is spectacular. It left me awestruck, just like the main character of the movie though … I would have run faster and further and not stopped in that first moment. I’d read some complaints about undeveloped characters that were hard to care about, but I cared enough about the central tripod of characters (you didn’t think it was a coincidence that there were three of them, supporting each other, did you?) that everything else being secondary was reasonable – I don’t care if what’s her name and her daughter get left behind on the pier, what’s Robbie doing? The emotional stakes in this movie are as high as in any of Spielberg’s best work, and I very nearly cried a couple of times. If you’re one to cry at movies, be warned.
Also, while I don’t want to say too much, I DO have one main complaint. I have no fucking clue how Robbie survived. Whaaa!?!? Seriously, that’s more silly than every other close-call; that was an everyone-dies situation, and he ran face first into it, unarmed against an unstoppable enemy. Seriously. What is this? A TV sitcom where everything in the main characters’ life has to return to normal by the end of the show? Sure, there are billions dead who we never meet, and a handful of characters we do meet almost surely dead or dead right before our eyes, but ALL the main characters survive? What? Is Boston not good enough for a first-strike attack? Mom and Tim aren’t in any danger at all? Ray’s ridiculous story about drinking bad tea with the grandparents really is true?
I guess it makes sense: If Ray is secretly a little bit psychic, that would explain all his otherwise coincidental successes. Either that, or he blew himself up with those grenades and is stuck dreaming forever in the afterlife that his family is whole and safe and the aliens just suddenly died with no explanation, all at once. I think I’ve solved it.
Anyway, if you can forgive H.G. Wells’ method for defeating the aliens and you can forgive the painful reversal that is Robbie’s miraculous survival, there will be nothing to stop you from totally and relentlessly enjoying this movie.
Would you believe I offered to take my brother to it with me, on my dime, and he turned me down? I know he’s out of money, and by the time he has more, Fantastic Four will have bumped War of the Worlds from the biggest screens. Oh well.
You should not do the same – do not miss out on this exciting, engaging movie.
