I saw War of the Worlds on wednesday!
I've read a few reviews of it and they put it down adn siad it was crummy in the extreme because it's an alien movie and, even though it is based on a classic novel (War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells) aliens have been done and you just can't do a plotless alien movie built around a cliche broken family.
Even so, I think it was done brilliantly. The orinigal novel was based in 19th century Britain that was written in first person from the point of view of a man who sent his wife onto boston ahead of him so that she would be safe and then followed, the aim being to reach his wife.
At first I was annoyed when it was based in modern-day United States and followed a man looking after his two kids who he has custody over for the weekend or whatever while his ex-wife and ex-wife's fiance are in Boston visiting the children's grandparents.
But I guess part of the impact of War of the Worlds is to give it a certain amount of realism and setting it in 19th century Britain just doesn't have the same effect. When WotW was first aired on the radio, the station received panicked phone calls asking whether it was true.
I found the movie genuinely frightning. usually, aliens don't scare me in the least and it wasn't relaly that aprt that scared me. What was frightening was the people and how they reacted. There were some really shocking scenes in the movie that made you sit there going "....
.....
.....
!"
Really, I lvoed it. A lot.