Film Rants pt.2 "War of the Worlds"

War of the Worlds! War of the Worlds - piece of crap more like!

Take it as an adaptation of the book - it is incorrect, inaccurate and even dares to re-writes H.G.Wells' beautiful and original prose!

Take it as a film in its own right - it is badly written, badly directed, badly acted and has repeated hugely irritating moments, vast plot holes and is as inconsistent as a badly mixed flan.

What were they playing at? Why is Tom Cruise ever hired to play anything ever? Why was Tim Robbins, who is usually excellent (Nothing To Lose with Martin Lawrence - aside), reduced to playing a monosyllabic hick version of the excitable but deluded Ogilvy from the book? Why children? why family conflicts?
Why for the love of God Why!

If Spielberg wanted to make 'Generic Alien Attack movie where, unlike my previous attempts at the genre, people actually die' then fine he should have gone ahead and made that but to call this War of the Worlds is a case for consumer support groups everywhere.
What would you do if you bought a can of beans, got them home, opened them and found that it was infact a can of sick would you accept that?
Maybe these days you would, you'd probably give it to the kid you had when you
were 15, light up a cigarette, throw off your Burberry cap and wonder off, flick on the TV to see if anyone had copulated on Big Brother. I don't know anymore, I give up!

Ok so you could maybe say that my opinion of Tom Cruise, Spielberg, the script
or the film etc. were all just opinions and you'd be right but when you look at this, well I hesitate to call it a film, as an adaptation of the book (or indeed any other subsequent version of the story), then, you can't deny the fact that it remains a case for the advertising commission, for this is one film that doesn't do anything it says on the tin.

Effects and a couple of pretty images do NOT justify this film!
It wasn't even good popcorn b-movie laughable trash! I can sit through allsorts of stuff in the name of entertainment, I am not some film student sitting around in a Camden chic leather jacket discussing Kurosawa, Herzog, Polanski or Bergman, I like a trash 'They Came From Mars!' film as much as anyone else and probably more so! but it's just that this film doesn't even work on that level!
It irritates like finger nails on a blackboard.