Sofia Santos

Still a very good movie to watch for me. The special effects are amazing, the Martian Tripods were horrifying as they should be, the sound design is brilliant, and the tension during some scenes is so strong because the scenes consisting of the Martians or aliens are so well done. That being said, it's not perfect. The characters are insufferable, especially the father Ray Ferrier played by Tom Cruise. I couldn't stand him throughout the first act, the dude didn't even care about his kids. Speaking of the kids in this movie, people are way too harsh on them. Both Robbie & Rachel are actually 10x smarter than Ray during the Martian attacks. And Rachel's screaming isn't nearly as annoying as Mary Jane's screams from the Sam Raimi Spider-Man trilogy. She's a child who just witnessed mass homicide, give her a break. The dialogue and screenwriting is also kinda flawed. The film also tends to inch away from the H.G. Wells novel, not acknowledging the other weapons the Tripods or Fighting-Machines had like the Black Smoke. The Handling-Machines, Flying-Machines, the fact that they were Martians seeking the survival of their race, no capsules that they landed in, the sense of dread as the cylinder/capsule unscrews, and so on. Despite the Aliens in this adaptation creeping me out when I was younger, here they don't make sense whereas in the book they did. In the book, they were Martians and Mars became completely uninhabitable for them. With Earth close by and teem of the resources they needed, they planned to become inhabitants of the planet with the obstacle of humanity. Here, they are aliens from a very far away unnamed planet who planned this invasion for unknown reasons. Not only that, but apparently their Fighting-Machines were sent to Earth millions of years ago and the pilots arrived to Earth through lightning and came up from under the ground? Why make illogical changes such as these? I will never understand this. So much potential lost. Other than that, this film adaptation of the beloved H.G. Wells novel is pretty good. For me at least.