War Of The Worlds (2005)

Here's a Tom Cruise movie I hadn't seen before! Since it was that I expected more action, but it turned out to be basically a father and his children running for their lives from an alien threat, only for it all to come falling down at the end.

It's unexpected, with some really eerie large-scale action sequences with something you usually don't see in war movies: a mass of people fleeing in the background, not from people, but from their common foe, united but also divided by their fear and will to survive.

It's a slaughter. The airplane outside the house. The river. The landscape drenched in blood. The roots that grow, only to wither and die... it's a horror. Different. Suffocating, and refreshing, and provoking. I don't really feel Tom Cruise was the best possible candidate for this movie, maybe because he doesn't feel like the type to run, or because he seems like himself - and I relate that do other movies where he doesn't. He's a great actor, and as emotional as ever, but maybe just not the right guy this time around. He doesn't take away from the movie, but I feel like someone else might give it more.

It's masterfully shot though. There's a little lack of detail in the CGI, but it seems pretty future-proof otherwise, and maybe for that particular reason. Effects are great. The aliens look a bit like E.T. I'm impressed - and surprised. The characters don't surprise as much as the setting, but maybe that's the point. It's a twist to the typical alien invasion, with a scenario where mankind stands up and fights, of course with the US of A on the front lines, but fails. The futility is made clear. Is it luck that saves us? Fate? Hope? Willpower? Divinity? We're only human after all. It ends with a few things to think about, even if the character ending is almost disappointingly simple.

Also interesting: Scary Movie 4 was based largely upon this. Now I catch those references. :)

 rated 4/5: fo shizzle