The War of the Worlds (2005 Video) User Reviews

Like Lord of the Rings - only with more walking. A LOT more walking. And then some.

[ColinPotterHatesWalking · 2/10 · 16 June 2005]

I must admit I burst out laughing when I saw one reviewer compare this to LOTR. Well yes, if you exclude the dwarfs, the cast of thousands, the great special effects, the big battles, the strong characterization, the decent plot, the good acting, the classy direction and everything else. Which leaves you with the walking. And boy, does this film do walking! If Mr Piano had his way, this would probably be an uninterrupted three hours of hardcore walking through the Wisconsin countryside, but every 40 minutes or so these pesky Martians pop up for a few seconds to interrupt him before he goes for another bit of a ramble. You've never seen so much walking in a movie. If this really had a $20m budget, most of it must have gone on Mr Piano's shoes, because he had to get through plenty of pairs with all the walking he does. Which explains why there's no money left for decent effects, a decent video camera or proper actors. Honestly, it's like watching some bizarre fetish video for people with a thing about going for long walks in period costumes. Even on fast-forward, this is a looonnnggg walk.

As for the sci-fi stuff, I think it was a mistake to put Martians in the film: they only get in the way of the walking, which is clearly much more interesting to the director than the story.

I wonder how much Mr Piano charges to walk dogs?

This cost five mil?

[atthisstage · 2/10 · 20 June 2005]

The one scene that sums it up for me is the ferry crossing, in which, if you look, you'll see the ferry sailing *sideways*. That right there sums this picture up for me.

By the third walking scene, I found myself giggling as I said aloud to my housemate (in my worst English accent), "Oh, it's so grand to be an Englishman walking in the countryside! Bloody, bloody grand to walk! Walking, walking, walking -- there's nothing like it!" and so on throughout any and all of the sequences.

But other bizarre things abound: the incomprehensible lunch scene between the Author, his wife, and the maid, in which it appears he's leering at the maid in front of his wife. The interminable fight scene between the Brother and one of the ruffians (who, in a previous shot, was seen running quickly, quickly in the other direction). A visible bike rack in the London scene where the Brother steals a bike.

On the other hand, I have to give these folks serious chops for having the audacity to release this. Even though it was performed by a company of about 20 (with each person taking on about eight or nine roles), it was an astounding tribute to independent film making in all its ragged glory.

If you're really interested in the story, read the book.

[PWNYCNY · 4/10 · 18 April 2008]

The movie is not as bad as some suggest. The special effects and acting are laughable but unlike other versions of this movie, this one actually follows the book, making it at least something worth watching. Where the movie really fails is in the acting. This movie contains some of the worst acting this reviewer has ever seen in a feature motion picture and the acting is made even worse by the ludicrous special effects that were transposed onto the screen and completely fail to convey the horror of the Martian attack. At times this movie seemed to be a cartoon but without the colorful animation. Also, the main character's constantly running to and fro, or hither and yon, was almost laughable and entirely perplexing given the infestation of Martians who were lurking everywhere, ready to snatch a unwary human for a meal. But despite all these drawbacks the movie still manages to tell a story so for that reason alone it's worth a look. But if you are really interested in the story, read the book.

Not the worst movie of all time (scant praise)

[scroggs · 1/10 · 13 July 2005]

Is it possible to give a movie NO STARS? I suppose not. However many stars IMDb displays this just think zero and you'll get my drift. Director and photographer Timothy Hines didn't have much of a budget compared to Spielberg's Herculean effort with the same material (rumored to be the most expensive movie ever made), but that need not be an insurmountable handicap. I've seen some wonderful work done on a comparative shoestring ("Soldier and Saints" is a recent example). With hard work, integrity and, above all, talent it is certainly possible to realize a faithful rendition of Wells' novella -- and at fraction of what was spent by Dreamworks on its "War of the Worlds". Unfortunately, Hines failed in all these departments. Even if he had had Spielberg's budget and Tom Cruise signed for the lead his movie would have stunk just as badly as this barnyard animal he's foisted on us.

Primarily, Hines seems unable to tell a story. Thanks to digital video technology he can record images and sound, but he shows little aptitude for assembling a narrative with what he records. A guy walks down a country lane, a lot. He talks badly aped Received English to some other guy. Then he walks down the same lane, only shot from the back this time to show he's returning -- clever, eh? Walking and talking, for nearly an hour that's all that happens. OK, I'll grant that one extended excursion from the main character's house to the impact site on Horsell Common to show that it's a considerable distance from one place to the other might be useful (a first-year film student could storyboard a more economical and more aesthetical establishing sequence than this, btw), but half a dozen times? Back and forth, back and forth, et cetera, et cetera with some yakkity-yak in between. Remarkable. The only explanation for this surfeit of redundancy other than total artistic ineptitude is a desire to pad out thirty minutes of wretchedly amateurish CG works into something that could be offered as a feature-length film. Finally the Martian fighting machines appear and the walking and talking becomes running and talking, or shrieking. Later we get staggering and wailing for dessert.

Thankfully, much of the dialogue is lifted straight from H.G. Wells' text; else we'd have no idea what is going on. But is it not the whole point of cinema to illuminate a text, to realize what words alone can't convey? If a film relies on dialogue or monologue to tell us what we see or how to feel, why bother? Why not do a radio play? Orson Welles made himself a household name doing just that. However, Hines thinks he's a filmmaker, so he's content to mouth the words and swallow the meaning.

Secondly, Hines was able to buy some CG effects of a sort for his movie, but he has no idea how to use them. Now I for one have no unquenchable sweet tooth for eye candy. I believe good science fiction cinema doesn't need dazzling technical effects. Some really potent Sci-Fi's have flourished on virtually none at all. But "The War of the Worlds" as film requires a certain baseline effort. Wells tells a story that hinges on things can be seen and heard and even smelled. The effects don't need to be complex; they can even be crude (e.g. fighting machines on wires gliding over miniature streets as seen in the George Pal/Byron Haskins 1953 version), but they must be handled well. Unfortunately Hines' effects are both crude and incompetent – tripod fighting machines higher than a cathedral spire stomp around making a noise like a pogo stick bouncing on linoleum – Martian squidoids even though oppressed by four times the gravity of their native world scurry and flit about without perceptible effort – skeletons totally denuded of flesh and muscle writhe and scream -- the same damn horse and buggy greenscreens its way across the foreground a dozen times (flipped left for right occasionally in hope that we might not notice) – and on ad nauseum. Crude technique is forgivable. So you have a CG fire effect that's less than convincing? Fine, we can work around that. Just don't use it too often and only show glimpses of it. That stomped woman sequence looks more like a crushed plum? Throw it away. It's not necessary. You say your Martian flyer looks like a toy on a string? If you must use it, go ahead, but please don't show it twice! But no, Hines won't listen. We get the worst looking stuff used again and again. Gotta get those 180 minutes somehow, boy.

Next we have acting, or more precisely too much acting. Whether in a speaking role or just paid to die on queue everybody in this film is acting his little heart out. Evidently Hines thinks he's getting a bargain -- More fleeing in terror over there! You, quaking behind that tree, let's have a real conniption fit this take. You call that writhing in agony? Nonsense, my grandmother can writhe better -- Nevertheless the cast as a whole and individually stink. They aren't even good amateurs. But this needn't prove fatal. Many a good movie has been made with rancid acting. That's what directors are for. And editors. Which brings up another point… Who the hell let Tim Hines edit this cheese factory? If America's butchers were as adept at meat cutting as Hines is at film cutting your next hamburger would be all fingers and no beef. In spite of the near three-hour running time there is lots of stuff missing from this movie -- not sequences, but single frames, creating a herky-jerky effect that's nauseating to watch. Maybe Hines intention was to simulate the effect of a hand cranked cine camera of the 1890's. If he was I can say he doesn't know how to do it.

This may indeed be the worst movie ever created

[castricv · 1/10 · 9 June 2005]

Normally when I write a review for a movie online, it is for one of three reasons. Either, I have found something exceptionally lacking in a film that otherwise would have been excellent, I feel that the public's perception of a film before viewing it is inaccurate for a number of reasons, or I believe that the purpose or message of a film needs to be clarified or explained with the help of other reviewers. While all of these reasons may appear to be somewhat negative, I find that writing a review that lavishes nothing but praise and statements such as, "This is one of the best films of all time!", does nothing to enlighten a potential viewer on its merits and downsides, nor does it often give reasoning as to why a movie is so good, which should be the point of the review in the first place. With that being said, War of the Worlds is nothing more than a hurried, incompetent attempt at a money grab; piggy-backing its loathsome carcass on the multi-million dollar advertising campaign of the film of the same name directed by Steven Spielberg. Many people will buy this DVD in anticipation of the summer blockbuster and many more poor souls will buy it looking for more material on the same subject. This movie is not even "so bad" that it becomes funny or endearing, rather the audience will be so unbelievably disappointed as to reach the point of anger. Now with most of the insults out of the way, allow me to give some arguments as a warning to those more fortunate than I.

Judging from the cover and the lack of any publicity for this film (I found it as SAM's Club for 8 bucks), I assumed that the cast would be no-names and that the special effects would be nothing too spectacular. Check. This is not a big deal for me, as I find a large budget and an over-reliance on big name stars and SE can diminish an otherwise decent movie. I also did not expect to be blown away by great dialog or a moving score. Check again. What I did hope for was an actual serious attempt at a classic theme and a few alien/battle scenes.

Now, as per IMDb's policy any spoilers must be announced in advance, no matter how small, so here is fair warning. The movie opens with a lot of inane small-talk, followed by a trip to an observatory to look at a red dot. Seriously, it is a pictures of a red dot in a tube. It is very hard to describe every little issue in depth, but by the end of the first ten minutes, the combination of shaky camera-work, spliced scenes, and a LOT of walking begin to frustrate the viewer. However, the costuming is surprisingly not bad and the hope that the pods will reveal something mysterious keeps you going. The next 30 minutes basically go as follows: one of the main characters walks to one of the pods, he looks at the pods and talks to another main character about looking at the pod and it may be hot. They both walk back to town. These walks aren't two seconds or added so that dialog may be exchanged. They are twenty seconds or more and are there simply to add filler to an already bloated three hour movie. In a particularly grueling scene, the main character is shown looking at a pod, then he is shown pacing and panting, then he looks at the pod, then he takes a one minute walk through a field to town, then comes in to town and walks into a building, then he has a cup of coffee and says "Thank you Mary" to a random maid that serves him coffee, then he puts down the coffee and walks out the building, then he walks a minutes through the field and back to the pod. I apologize for the extreme run-on sentence, but it is perhaps the best way to summarize this entire film. Characters speak way too long about mundane things, they walk a lot, they send other people to walk, the camera fluctuates between high speed and slow speed, but for no dramatic effect, simply the camera man is a sophomore at Tech somewhere. The editing is mind-bogglingly bad. People actions make little sense. For instance, when the professor goes to a farmer's house and says that he needs the farmer to give him a ride to town, the farmer stutters and paces around. When the professor says that there is a pod and that men might be trapped inside, the farmer locks him in a shed only to see the professor grab a pitchfork and open the weak shed a second later. Nothing of any consequence of course comes from this entire scene, as the professor runs into the main character a moment later so they can begin their afternoon walk. The entire film feels as if someone at one point had a good idea about making a film, but absolutely no idea how to put that in motion. I have seen better high school video productions. Finally, the special effects are laughable and do nothing to advance the story. I get the feeling that the director really wanted this film to become somewhat of a cult classic of campy garbage. However, it is so awful in technical aspects, and in sheer common sense that it only makes people mad. Avoid this film at all costs.

Stick to the 1953 version, or wait for Spielbergs rendition

[reverend_darkshadow · 1/10 · 13 June 2005]

I am currently sitting here, forcing myself to finish this. I figure I blew 6 bux on the VHS, might as well suffer for it. I remember about 4 or 5 years ago doing a search on the internet for "War of the Worlds" cause of the rumors of the Spielberg movie at the time, and I missed the old TV series from the early 90's. The website make it out that this was a multi-million dollar budget rendition of the classic book. It was going to be a "perfect translation". Perfect CRAP is more in tune with this film.

First off, the video on this movie was glitched! It looked as if I was watching the Full Motion Video from an old mid-90's PC or Playstation CD-Rom video game. Sadly enough, the color quality was similar. The acting made Shatners classic "dramatic pause" look damn near Shakespearean in quality. The CG rendering of various scenes was horrendous, and green screen sequences were worse than those seen in old Dukes of Hazardd scenes.

Secondly, it is slow and terribly drawn out. I sat thru 45 minutes of the video (no promo's at the beginning) before the cylinder actually Opened to reveal the first alien. After that, the alien was a terribly constructed CG squid. I am now an hour into it and the most of the alien weaponry I have seen is a spinning silver disk (crappy down even) attached to a mechanical arm. The dramatic scenes are murdered with overly done instrumental's. The last thing on that, for an alien invasion in the turn of the century 1900's NO ONE is concerned for their life. It's like they have no concept. Even though media was slow, word of mouth spreads fast and people would have known. The "illusion" of day and night was shoddy at best. Simply changing the color around the people to purple, blue or green does not signify NIGHT TIME. Perhaps some lighting and actual night time shoots would have given a MUCH better illusion. THere is a lot of wasted sequences throughout the film of just watching the "hero" gallop around or walk down silly roads. Get on with the film. I know how people get around, you do NOT need to be so in-depth.

Now, finally an hour and 5 minutes into the film and they show the alien machines. Mighty Morphin Power Rangers had better looking effects. Even the skeletons of vaporized humans looked as if animated by a freshman high school computer app class student. The animations do NOT match up to the scenery at all.

In closing folks, if you want "The War of the Worlds", do one of four things. 1) Watch the 1953 original, 2) watch the early 90's TV series, 3) wait for Spielberg's rendition to be released shortly, OR 4) Read the frikkin book (something we all probably did in elementary English class). AVOID THIS MOVIE. IT IS A WASTE OF YOUR MONEY.

Wow...

[brianlindstrand · 1/10 · 9 June 2005]

Wow...

I picked this up at the local Wal-Mart after reading online that it had been released early. I've been following this online for some time, and just had to buy the film.

Wow...

I guess the thing that really struck me was the editing, or lack thereof. Time and again, characters (usually The Narrator and whoever he is with) are shown walking...and walking...and walking. I am not an editor, but I do know that you can cut between someone leaving point A to show them arriving at point B. There is no need to show almost the entire journey! Wow...

I actually ended up feeling somewhat sorry for the actors involved in this. They seem to have been given no direction as to what to do during scenes other than to look scared or look happy, depending on what action was to be added at a later date.

Wow...

Why it was decided to do almost all the effects using CG is beyond me. Even ILM still employs miniatures sometimes. One of the most distracting uses of green screen in this film is the constant rushing about of (according to the end credits) the same group of people representing the citizenry of different towns and cities, including London. At times these folk are coming and going with no regard as to the angle of the shot or the distance they are from the camera. In one shot in London, there appear to be at least two men over six feet tall walking just behind the narrator's brother (played by star Anthony Piana without his distracting mustache). Not since GETTYSBURG have I seen such a fake piece of facial hair.

Wow...

Why Timothy Hines talked up this film the way he did is beyond me. It is a turkey, plain and simple. On the plus side (at least for me) it has provided some of the most genuine laugh-out-loud bits of hilarity I have seen in quite a while.

makes Ed Wood look like Orson Welles

[crowder-1 · 1/10 · 9 June 2005]

After hearing the word of mouth of just how bad this film is I took the plunge and bought the DVD. That said everything previously mentioned about this film is true. For a film that claimed to have a budget in the millions it just does not show on the screen at all. The list of problems with the film could drag on forever. Chief amongst them is the film is simply too long. It dragged on for a few minutes short of 3 hours. Nearly an hour probably could have been cut off the run time had the editor simply removed the overabundance of scenes dealing with nothing more then the main character wandering around aimlessly.

Secondly, as many had pointed out from the "trailers", the special effects are anything but special. The tripods looked OK in a few shots here and there but beyond that everything was grade-Z 1970's or 1980's quality. Probably the worst effects of all were the horses, which stiffly tottered back and forth as they moved. The heat ray effects were laughable, as people were reduced to bones that somehow were still able to flail about without any muscles. Also pitiful was the Thunderchild sequence, in which the Thunderchild, described in the book as an ironclad ram, looked nothing of the sort. Instead it resembled a World War 1 era destroyer, complete with deck guns (which fired but had no visible crew), and torpedo tubes.

The colors and backgrounds were just as bad as the effects. Most laughable of all was a scene early on in which the main character and his wife go for a nighttime stroll and he points out Mars to her in the sky. Well, the sky is black, but the views of the characters and the landscape around them is broad daylight. There is also a very sharp demarcation between the real landscape, bathed in full sunlight, and the fake black night sky with overly large fuzzy stars. To detract even further, the color of the scenes made no sense. In some they are bathed in orange light. In others green light. In still others it's blue light. In some instances the outsides are orange lit but the interiors of houses are green or blue. The frame-rate and camera is very shaky, giving everything a stuttering look.

Finally, the acting is overall sub-par. One man portrays two characters who's sole difference was one lacked a mustache. This led to some confusion at times as to who was who and where they all were. The English accents, even to American ears, are outrageous.

In summary, this movie could very well make a claim to being the worst film released in recent times. I have not seen Gigli or some of the other recent flops but this one, because of it's poor quality in every respect, must easily be worse then anything that mainstream Hollywood has put out. I would not be surprised if the movie makes it to the bottom 10 or 20 in the IMDb rankings. It's a pity that Mystery Science Theater is not still around.

Very Educational In Its Way

[tgw_13 · 1/10 · 6 July 2005]

I honestly believe that ANYONE considering film-making be subjected to this mind-boggling failure. Like the "films" of Edward Wood, Jr. in the '60s and '70s, this film is a shining example of why real filmmakers expend so much energy rewriting scripts, re-editing their films, and reworking their special effects until they finally look right. This movie is also a decent argument FOR the studios' pre-screening process. If Mr. Hines were forced to endure the honest reactions of an impartial audience, perhaps he would have cut 75% or the walking/running/strolling scenes and edited this movie down to a more bearable 90 minutes.

Film students should view this movie as an example of just how dangerous thinking their work is "good enough" can truly be. Every performance, every line of dialog, every digital effect, every filter effect, indeed every frame of video expresses the danger of striving for mere mediocrity. A beginning filmmaker may find himself/herself tempted from time to time to think "At least I accomplished SOMETHING" or "Just finishing this will be an accomplishment in itself". This movie will help them understand just how badly a film can turn out.

Critics might also benefit from seeing this movie before they dub the latest summer entertainment "the worst movie ever made".

Beginning writers can learn from this film just how important rewrites are, and perhaps understand the necessity for rewrites. Also, beginning directors can learn the importance of a GOOD screenplay, and some degree of respect for just how hard it is to write a script that causes the audience to feel emotionally compelled through the story. Writers and directors who watch bad made-for-cable movies of the week and think "I can do better than THAT" can see get an idea from this movie how difficult it really IS to produce even mediocre results.

I sincerely believe this movie can serve as an educational tool to beginning filmmakers. Particularly those entering the craft in this current post-Lucas and post-Spielberg environment. There is a reason filmmakers such as these are hailed for their ability with special effects. The War of the Worlds illustrates clearly that not everyone can pull it off. Some can't even come CLOSE to it.

Neal hit the nail on the head , this is horrendous.

[procopius-2 · 1/10 · 3 August 2005]

Finally i thought someone is going to do justice to H.G. Wells's classic , not another version set in the wrong locale or era , but one based firmly on the book . Well it definitely follows the book pretty closely , and that is the only plus to this mess.

This is 180 Min's (yes 3 hours) long , the book is only around 150 pages .

If Timothy Hines had the nerve to come on here and say "if you can do any better ..." i would say "yes , i could" and i have never used a video camera or been to any sort or drama school in my life.

I paid good money to get this crap over to the UK from the USA , do not make the same mistake as me .

I only watched the first hour!

[erikruud · 13 September 2005]

I guess I am better off than most of the people who commented on this film. I checked mine out from the local library, so I haven't lost $8.00.

I really wanted to see a version of the movie that was faithful to the book. While this version is faithful, it is so badly made that I could not continue watching it.

What is with the frame rate? At points it looks like they shot it at 24fps and then deleted every third or forth frame! There are a few shots were the characters skitter about so fast that I expected to here the music from the Benny Hill chase scenes.

The worst Dr. Who episode looks better than this. My friend in high school made better films with just a Super8 camera.

Very Disappointing.

A bizarre movie

[maxc7001 · 9/10 · 19 June 2005]

When I heard about this version of War of the Worlds over a year ago, I was excited. I love the book and I love the Jeff Wayne musical. Not much of a fan of the George Pal version primarily because it did away with the tripod walking machines. Even though I'd read miserable reviews, I figured it couldn't be THAT bad.

So, when I heard that this DVD was completed and released, I checked Wal-Mart on a tip from another post. No dice. Best Buy, Circuit City and Target yielded equally fruitless searches. I found it in the DVD racks of CVS pharmacy of all places! I took it home and watched it.

Now, I'm a grizzled watcher of bad movies. I saw Manos: The Hands of Fate before MST3K made it watchable. I saw Food of the Gods and Empire of the Ants when they were released on a double feature at the drive-in. I bore witness to The Swarm on it's initial run. I actually OWN a copy of The Giant Spider Invasion.

I was ready for anything. I can take it, I thought.

About twenty minutes into War of the Worlds I got the same feeling a hulking drunken brute gets when he picks a fight with a small-framed karate expert at a bar. I brought it on and I was in big trouble. I was waaaayyyy out of my league. It was as if the Gods of Film had smote me for the sin of pride.

That said, I will cherish this film for the rest of my days. It taught me a lesson in humility. My arrogant friends who thought the way I did will be made to watch this. Mandatory.

Thanks to everyone involved in the creation of this twisted, laughable, ludicrous and horrifying debacle. You knocked me down a couple pegs.

And for that, it gets a 9.

I'll never be the same.

Good

[shadowmaster5 · 7/10 · 10 August 2005]

This version of The War of the Worlds, may not be the film of the century like Stephen Spielberg's adaptation but unlike Spielberg's this film IS The War of the Worlds. Not just tripods and red weed, but the characters are the same, the narration is the same and the acting...well they bring the characters to life. Even some of H.G.Wells' beliefs were portrayed. This is the first film to ever use the Torpeado Ram Thunderchild to which i say THANK YOU!!!! The Thunderchild is the most thought of image when the War of the Worlds is thought of as it is the ship being destroyed on the cover art of Jeff Wayne's Musical. OK the graphics aren't brilliant, there is a lot of CGI and Bluescreening, but if this film had had a bigger budget this would have been the best version of the film I have ever seen. The music score is also very good, thought sometimes it feels a little abrupt when it stops. The main theme is used well throughout the Parson and Wells' scene in the ruined house. John Kauffman, Anthony Piana, Jack Clay and James Lathrop have brought the characters of the Parson, the Narrator, Olgivy and the Artilleyman into life in exactly the right way not a merged character that feels a bit sudden like in Speilbergs version. I suggest to anybody that sees a copy of this to at least hire it if not buy it. If your a fan of the book you will not be disappointed.

A $20 million budget? Hmmm....

[SciFiSly · 1/10 · 29 June 2005]

Nu Image, UFO and others produce films for the SCI FI channel that come in with budgets of roughly $2 million. Some feature extensive effects work, others feature recognizable casts and still others feature both -- for $2 million.

Mr. Hines initially claimed that this film was budgeted at $20 million dollars but it's painfully obvious that this was probably produced for $750,000 if not considerably less than that. Few sets are utilized, a number of scenes are shot against green screen and most effects seem incomplete and amateurish.

It's painful to watch. Not so much because it is poorly directed, poorly executed and misguided but because many of us have been following the progress of this production for quite some time and had high hopes for this film despite its relatively modest budget.

Those of us who believed in this movie when it was originally announced have joined the legions of those spoken of by P.T. Barnum.

If you like boring, stale, action-less movies........

[withoutadoubt_singledout · 1/10 · 1 August 2005]

I love movies, and I'll watch any movie all the way through, just to give it a chance. I can finally say that I found a movie I can't watch all the way through. The acting is terribly stale and monotone, the CGI looks like a computer geek did it in his mother's basement with minimal software, and.....the long scenes of just...walking!!!! And this movie is THREE HOURS LONG!!! I didn't even make it 15 minutes until I fast forwarded the DVD. The scenes with the aliens are very short. Ummm, instead of naming this "War of the Worlds", lets name this "War of the Walking Long Distances". This cost 5 million dollars to make! What they spend the money on, the dramatic opening song?

Oh, but on a positive note, one scene you need to watch is when the aliens first begin killing people. That's hilarious, not because people are dying, but because when they turn to skeletons, they still squirm for 20 seconds afterward.

So....like I said, if you are a fan of boring, stale, action-less movies, here is one for you DVD collection. But I didn't write this for you, I wrote this for the billions upon billions of other people who will HATE this movie. It is not worth your time or money

I know this is by the book, but the book isn't that long, and I'm a complete book worm/nerd/geek/whatever, but why? Just get the Steven Spielberg version, it's not all that good, but it's 10 times better than this!!

I give this a BIG, FAT ZERO out of 10.

Dear oh Dear

[callcott · 1/10 · 5 September 2005]

War of the Worlds is my favourite book... EVER. I've read it countless times and it still scares me. When I heard about this adaption by Timothy Hines at the same time I found that Spielberg was making an updated version I kinda remained loyal. Despite the hype that this was gonna be a s**t film I wanted to see an adaption of the original book. I visited the web site and saw the picture of the war machine in the flames and thought "They must all be wrong. It looks good"... I then managed to blag a copy for about 50p ($0.25) from ebay and thought Hoorrah. I got about 45 minutes into the film and turned it off. I thought I could sit through the poor effects and concentrate on the story but no. Sadly this film is a mockery of the original book and I advise all who read this review not to see the film. Go see the Spielberg one, at least the effects look good if the story is pants

A Must Not See Film

[jkris97 · 1/10 · 1 July 2005]

Save the $8.97 you'll spend at Walmart to buy this DVD and go see the real film by Steven Spielberg.

I'm a filmmaker, and being an avid fan of H.G. Wells, I had to buy this hoping to sit down and watch three hours of good entertainment. Instead, it took four days to finish watching this because I couldn't stand watching more than 10 minutes at a time. It's horrible.

There are reports that Timothy Hines had a $20 Million budget for this production. Where the heck did it go? Did he use most of it to buy a new house? Finance his retirement? Or what? Let me start with what is actually good about this film. It does stay true to the book AND there are a few good performances in it. I can respect the actors who obviously tried to make this a good film. But good performances were quickly overshadowed by horrible... and I do mean horrible special effects. Any freshman film school student could have done a much better job with the CGI. To me, most of it looked like "stop action" card board cutouts that were used rather than sophisticated CGI software that a $20 Million project should be using.

There's no excuse for the amateur post production that was applied to this film. My own partner and I sat down and recreated our version of the Ferry scene using software that cost less than $1500.00 and within a day had five minutes of scene that looked better and more realistic than what Hines created. I've seen films with budgets of less than $2 Million look better. Much better.

In my opinion the special effects used in the original King Kong were more sophisticated and better than Hines' special effects in this film. IN fact, I have a much better appreciation for Attack of the Killer Tomatoes because of this film. There's no excuse with today's technology for a film to look like a 50's B-Movie unless that was the intention, which shouldn't have been with this particular project.

A problem I had with the DVD transfer was that the film is jerky, another demonstration of amateur film-making.

Overall, I have to say that I produced a $45,000 project in 2003 that have better cinematography and special effects than this film.

I strongly encourage anyone who appreciates good film-making or who is a fan of WOTW to leave this film on the shelf and watch Attack of the 50 Foot Woman instead. It would be easier on the eyes.

Beyond Excrement

[MetalMiike · 1/10 · 17 June 2005]

I have seen some utter, utter garbage in my time; I have sat through flicks by Al Adamson and Ed Wood, I have endured some of the worst student films of all time and, I'm proud to say, I even made one of the worst student films of all time but this is from another dimension. Nothing can even begin to describe the stench arising from this piece of filth. Where can I possibly begin? The performances are universally abysmal. I mean amateurish is one thing, the acting in a Timothy Hines film is another. Anthony Piana not only varies between American and Australian accents but he manages to mix in Scots, Irish, Welsh, North Yorkshire and Jordie tones as well; everything except what he is supposed to. James Lanthrop is a joke. I don't even know where he is supposed to be from. He started the movie with an American accent and slowly graduated to communicating with sounds I never thought any human being was biologically capable of making. Jack Clay plays Ogilvy as if he were hard of hearing, always putting his hand to his ear, SHOUTING and making theatrical gestures... I could go on but it's to embarrassingly painful. The special effects deserve mention though; there are none. Hilarity ensues from the first frame. The CGI bares absolutely no interaction between the real elements of the frame, the actors and the camera movements. Coupled to this is the utter stupidity of the digital grading; night, day, sunrise, sunset, nuclear winter, smog pollution and a bad LSD trip are all depicted at anyone time. I'm guessing Timothy Hines has never been to the UK as he doesn't seem to know that over here, our air is made of Nitrus Oxide too and not, as the photography in the film would suggest, an Argon/Carbon Dioxide mix. Which brings me to my biggest gripe; the location work. CGI shots of London show it to be a 14th century village surrounding Big Ben. Big Ben is shown as a freestanding structure, which it is not, and never has been. Weirdly, the film opens with old silent footage of London and a clear view is afforded of the real Houses of Parliament and Big Ben. God knows why nobody thought to use this as a template. Other concerns are the backgrounds; sometimes actual "real world" locations are used (well, a field), other times very bad blue screen work inserts the characters into photoshop backgrounds executed by someone who cannot even switch on a pocket calculator. At other times, VERY American architecture can be seen in the background and indeed, most of the costumes are American in design. Much of the unintentional belly laughs come from the CGI horses, people and vehicles used in wide shots. There is a scene of a man running out of a church and getting flipped through the air by a martian war machine that will give you bladder problems for weeks. Believe me, the Big Ben shot in the trailer is the least the films problems. And what happened to such concepts of pace, cutting and location changes? In some sequences we get to see characters walk for ten minutes at a time, at others, the transitions are so quick that it is impossible to follow what is going on, even if you have read the book. I wish I had room here to analyse every frame; notice how, after a surprise explosion the Artillery Man throws himself against a door with an electric doorbell on it; all the (electric !) street lamps are those round American ones instead of the slim, rectangular British ones; the soldiers wear uniforms from three different periods; NO research into any aspect of 1890's period detail, of Britishness, of military procedure or even of how to actually make a film has been done at all. Bizarre, pointless things happen. An eternity is spent showing the Writer and his wife sitting with their friend at a table and the only thing that happens for five or ten minutes is that the Writer picks up a chocolate with his fork, pops it into his glass, knocks the glass over and then eats the chocolate, all the while looking like a pantomime villain in is mad fake moustache, which Piana takes off for when he plays the Writer's Brother. This is, beyond any shadow of a doubt is the worst film ever made anywhere. EVER. I hope Hines is reading this and taking note because someone has to make him understand he is incapable of filming wedding videos, let alone adaptations of classic novels. The whole three hours is nothing more than a joke. A three hour insult to the general public who purchase this. Yes, Tim, we Do notice when you use the same extras over and over again. We CAN tell the backgrounds are fake. We ARE aware that what you may think is London is in fact some fantasy land out of Harry Potter. And no matter how much frame judder you think is going to make the photography look filmic, we are quite capable of recognising cheap video work when we see it. I have only one thing to say about Timothy Hines; "Stop Him Before He Films Again!!!"

Update: It is telling that, as we have found out recently, the majority of this film was shot on location at a riding school near Seattle on weekends. further to this, the film was shot (and photographs have come to light that confirm this) on a Canon XM-1, a $1500 camcorder Timbo probably borrowed.

Gloriously awful

[MoosePiano · 1/10 · 15 June 2005]

I'm not really sure how to even begin to describe how bad this movie is. I like bad films, as they are often the most entertaining. I love bad special effects, bad acting, bad music, and inept direction. With the exception of the music (which was better than I had expected), this movie had all of those qualities.

The special effects were amazingly bad. The worst I've seen since my Nintendo 64. Some scenes to watch for include the Thunderchild, the woman being crushed by the mechanical foot, the Big Ben scene, the train wreck... Wow, there are so many bad effects! On the plus side, though, SOME scenes of the alien walkers are well done.

The acting was about as bad as it could possibly have been, having been based directly on H.G. Wells' book. For having such good source material, it's almost as though the actors were trying to be so over-the-top as to make it funny. And then there's the mustache... the single most distracting piece of facial hair I've seen in a long time. Of course, only half the movie contains acting. The rest is characters walking around aimlessly and poorly rendered effects shots.

To say that Timothy Hines is an inept director would be an injustice to inept directors. With the use of different colored filters between shots for no particular reason, the use of poorly rendered backgrounds for even inside scenes, the bad green screening, it's amazing to me how this man ever got approval to direct a movie. I wouldn't imagine it would be possible to turn a brilliant book into this bad a movie. Bravo, Mr. Hines. Bravo.

My advice to anyone who plans to see this movie is to do what I did: have some friends who enjoy bad movies over, drink, play poker while watching it, keep drinking, and maybe you'll make it all the way through. It does make for an excellent bad movie, so have fun and laugh yourself silly with this disaster.

If Ed Wood were still alive, this is what he'd make.

[DevilPaul · 1/10 · 4 July 2005]

Bought this at the local Wal-Mart for $7.50 last week. I'm a big fan of H.G. Wells' book and Jeff Wayne's musical plus I wasn't too giddy about the Spielberg/Cruise adaption so I thought I'd check this out. I never heard of Pendragon pictures or even knew another version was being made. So I saw it sitting there on the shelf at a low price and thought I couldn't go wrong there. I figured it'd be a low-budget, made-for-TV movie type of flick with suitable special effects, music, etc. Boy was I wrong! The acting wasn't so bad with the exception of a couple people. The main character has the fakest mustache I've ever seen. Was it so hard to get a professional looking one or for him to grow one? The special effects, let's not go there kids. These effects look like rendered cut scenes from a circa-1995 video game. 2 scenes that come to mind as extremely bad are when a person gets stepped on by a martian tripod and the scene where a woman gets her blood sucked out by aliens. Pathetic. The musical score wasn't so bad but it was so overplayed that halfway through this 3 HOUR movie I was begging for a scene with no soundtrack and wanted to smash the composer's keyboard. Editing is an art lost on this director. You know, some scenes don't need to be as long and we don't need a lot of shots just showing a guy walking around.

All in all, I picked this film up with no expectations or pre-conceived notions and I was really disappointed.

The Worst Film of All Time

[punking73 · 1/10 · 28 July 2005]

If this film had a budget of 20 million I'd just like to know where the money went. A monkey could make better CGI effects then what was wasted for 3 hours on this dreadful piece of garbage, although I must admit the machines and the martians would have looked really, really cool on an original play-station 1 game, and early PC games from the mid 90s if a game had ever been made. What puzzles me is where did the money go? Pendragon films could have made a great film with good old fashioned models and computer controlled cameras a la George Lucas circa 1975-83, and actors who actually look like they care about what they are doing (or ruining in this case) for about the same 20 million. This is quite possibly the worst film EVER made! I would rather sit through a 24 hour repeat screening of Ishtar than watch this film again. I hated it completely! I regress. I say this IS the WORST film EVER made because unlike other bad movies like Plan 9 or Killer Tomatoes, or Santa Claus Conquers the Martians, these are films that are so bad you have a special place in your heart for them, you love them. There is no love for this film and no place in my DVD library for it. I sold it to a guy for a dollar. I'm betting the money for the film was spent on booze and other vices for the cast and crew. Shame on you Pendragon films! I want my money back!

Has the feel of an amateur home movie...

[MisuBisu · 3 February 2006]

I wanted to see this film as I couldn't believe that it would be as bad as the reviewers made it out to be. Well it started of okay... until the martians appeared from inside meteorite. It was all down hill from that point. The concept that they chose to use for the martians was comical. Although pathetic is likely a better word to use. To think that evolution (in any galaxy) would have created something as impractical as these beauties is too funny for words. Some of the CGI effects were okay. But most of them were so amateur that I can't believe they would have seen this in the cutting room and came to the conclusion that this film was okay to charge the general public to go and see it. Many of the CGI effects were of the standard that most filmmakers use in their rough concept animated storyboards. The scene of the warships at sea were so amateur and comical, we had tears from laughing so much. The acting was reasonable from some of the cast, but very poor from most of the cast. The tripod CGI was very disappointing (but in some respects, better than a lot of the other CGI effects). The mustache on the leading actor so so fake... and was so obviously a fake mustache. Plus his mustache would disappear with every other scene he was in. At first I though that he was having flash-backs, to a time when he didn't have a mustache... but that didn't really gel either. The editing was very poor. Many of the scene sequences simply didn't make sense. There were lots of scenes that could be removed, and it would actually have given the story better continuity. Many of the scenic sequences were shot against the green screen and the blending between the for and background shots was very flawed. Many of these shots did not need to be done with green screen, they were simple shots that could have been done easily with real background. It escapes me why they chose to do i this way. I can usually find something good to say about any movie. But I can fid nothing good to say about this one.

Good war of the worlds adaptation

[lazychazman · 8/10 · 23 July 2006]

This movie is a lot better than the asylums version mainly its war of the worlds. The tripods look pretty cool but their walking and deaths could have been better. The action scenes were really cool. Walking... walking...walking...walking!!! oh my god stop walking please or i'm going to kill myself. The thunder child scene was my favorite sequence mainly because a ship rammed bunch of tripods. Good movie I recommend it for people ho have read the book. The music is awesome and the directors cut looks pretty cool.

pros. Good soundtrack 99% to the book Cool violence Tripods and handling machines are cool to look at

cons. some bad acting cheesy looking London

Not bad, but not good...

[dcsquires · 6/10 · 13 June 2005]

All in all this is a fair DVD outing if you feel so inclined. I have read the message boards on IMDb and yes, the acting is sub par at best. The story is faithful to the book about 90% of the time and the CGI is, at best, like that of a first year art student. Was that supposed to be a cow? The alien tripods are a great rendering. Concerning the CGI, we are so spoiled by state of the art effects that when something doesn't meet or exceed our expectations we become critical. This might have been due to budgetary restraints. I know the so called budget said it was $20,000,000.00 on the website but this is typical Hollywood (ballyhoo anybody?).

When it comes to the "style" the film was made (cinematography), to me, that was ingenious. It was almost like seeing some of the old tinted Victorian stereo-opticon(?)cards and "magic lanterns" of the same time period come alive. The tintings used were in stark contrast to say the normal color of whatever it would be in nature. (ex. red bush (bright reds), cool blues, sickly greens. We all forget that "Technicolor", either two (2) strip or three (3)strip was not true color. That's what made them so colorful and phony looking. Watch Dario Argento's "Suspiria" for one of the last and greatest uses of the three (3)strip process. Very surreal! The jerky picture style in some areas reflects that of the early silent movies from the time. Anyone here ever heard of George Melies? His early films were similar to the style used.

Getting to the movie (acting, etc). Yes the acting IS 3rd rate at best but watchable for one viewing - especially the priest -- very "Plan 9". Most reactions are far too broad. The story itself, as I said, does go by the book almost all the time.

Maybe more money, a "real studio" backing it and better direction could have improved on the movie. I saw all the negatives about Mr. Hines on the IMDb along with those on Amazon and, well, 'nuf said. Never met the guy but he had a good idea. It's too bad the studios could not back his vision and given us a better product.

With the near release of the Spielberg version of "War of the Worlds" I thought I would take a chance, bought it and really do not regret it. If asked would I sit through another viewing, well, if I will-I will, but I'm in no hurry. I will in the future. Beautiful visuals, throughout!! Yes it was not a great film, but I have seen much worse and done by major studios. "Plan 9 from Outer Space"? Not at all.

Save your time and money

[hunter48820 · 1/10 · 30 June 2005]

I didn't expect a Hollywood blockbuster, but this is just too bad to sit through for 3 hours. I loaned my DVD to a friend. He thought that it was the worst movie that he had ever seen.

Today, I ran into the Wal-Mart employee that served me when I bought the video. At the time, she said that she was interested in buying it. I was going to tell her to save her money but she had already bought it and had thrown it away.

Within the first few minutes, I had a feeling that it was going to be much worse than I originally planned for in a low budget movie.

For the amount of time that I did watch it, our hero seemed to spend half his time running! Running and running and running, through woods, along dirt roads, etc, etc, etc.! The funniest scene that I saw was when the aliens first attacked the humans standing in proximity to the machine and as their bodies dissipated down to just a skeleton, it continued wreathing and rolling on the ground for what seemed to be a ridiculously long period of time.

Half the night scenes had more daylight than a cloudy day! There were many other things that made this movie just too much. However, I can't tell you just how bad it got since I gave up on this movie before the first hour was up.

I'm all for independent film makers and would like to support them, but I expect a half decent low budget movie, not a joke!