War of the Worlds

The original Orson Welles "War of the Worlds" was one of my first "favorite" movies as a kid. My mom turned me on the movie as it was one of her favorites from when she was growing up. It was made the year she was born, and she first saw it at about age 7 on network TV. I also fell in the love with the movie instantly, and was very excited yet nervous when I saw that not only was it joining the parade of remakes, but it was going to star the "Tool of Scientology" ("Tool" for short) Tom Cruise. The one thing I was really excited about going into it was that Steven Speilberg was directing it. As a forewarning, do not read past this point if you have not seen the movie yet and wish to be surprised.

***SPOILERS***

Well we went and saw it Friday and I totally loved it. They did an awesome job with it. Many parts actually skipped the orginal movie and instead went back to the book which was written in 1898. They actually ditched the floating alien crafts and went to these tripods that had actually been buried into the earth waiting for their pilots to take them over. In the beginning of the movie there were these strange lightning strikes, which were actually the aliens being transported down into their crafts. After that they fun begins.

The real star of the movie was young Dakota Fanning who starred as "Tool"'s kid, and totally stole the movie from him. She did an incredible job selling the mood of fear that would go into an end of the world scenario, without the whining crying that most kids roles have at that point.

A couple of things that Speilberg did well was to reeact the scene where the people attack the truck and empty everyone out of it separating the dad and his kid, vs the guy and his new girlfriend in the orginal movie.

Another solid scene was were the little moble spy eye came into the basement to peak around and make sure everyone was dead. The new version was a lot tougher and thicker, but the scene was just as chilling as the original movie.

One neat thing I picked up when I went back and watched the original was that even though the female love interest of the original movie was ditched in favor of kids, Speilberg remembered her by naming the street that Cruise and his family lived on as Van Buren, a nod to Shiela Van Buren, who starred in the original.

One interesting change was that they ditched the whole scene in the church at the end of the movie where everyone is praying for a miracle from God, and then all of the sudden the aliens start to drop. I am not sure if this was in difference to "Tool"'s religious beliefs or a change made by the director, but it made the ending a little more sudden as the aliens just started to drop out of no where.

The end was great as they kept the alien hand falling out of the craft, dead.

All in all, an incredible remake, definately worth seeing. Get off your butts and see it at the theater.