Rated: PG-13 Running Time: 116 Minutes Year: 2005 Format: Alamo Draft House, 35mm, 1.85:1 The movie was starting at 9:50 so we had to be there by 9 at least, for ok seats. We got there, and we were met with far less people than expected…at least at first. Sporting our matching War Of The Worlds T-shirts acquired during an exclusive prview of WOTW in LA we were ready. As it crept closer to 9:20 the line had gotten very long, wrapped around and was a general hullabalu. There were all kinds of people there, in line for the 9:50 and 9:55 showings, I didn't get a feel of general nerdyness, it was a much broader audience than I had expected. There were more girls, and trendy types than I would have expected. Not that I was complaning or feeling out of place or anything like that. I just noticed it was a little bit different croud than expected for a 9:50 wednesday showing. There were people walking back and forth and this one boy got named douchebag. He walked by us first and Lib noticed his collar was up. He was wearing a white polo shirt and his collar was standing up, by choice as this is the hip style now. I told her that this was hot in the James Spader 80's. She was disgusted. I told her were old and must accept kids poor choices in looks, as they know little of what they do. As we were waiting in line Douchebag walked by a couple more times, stopping in the hallway to make out with his date/gf or whatever amongst the people in line. They said thier goodbyes, and then he walked by again. Each time we would discuss his attire and his stut down the asile, we were wondering what he was doing here, or why he hadn't left or was in a movie. He faded from sight again, and then returned. This time not only was his collar up, but he was also sporting a turquoise green/rainbow plaid polo jacket with the color up as well. At this point Lib had lost it and said I am taking a picture of this. She quickly snapped a pic, as he walked by making it look like we were shooting the line. We later found out, he was walking back and forth to cut in line as the line moved he jumped right in behind us. Pretty smooth. We were close to the front and were laughing from the pic that we didn't care or wanna talk to him. For your viewing pleasure I present to you…DOUCHEBAG! I saw the first War Of The Worlds when I was younger, it was not a scary movie to me. It did not generate nightmares, or fears of being killed by aliens. I never really have had the fear of the destruction of our world from beings from another world. However Communion did scare me a lot when I saw that. But it never stuck with me. I don't know what the general buzz was about this movie that made me so excited. I had heard about it and wanted to see it as soon as it was out. I guess just the idea of Speilburg doing it, might have made me intersted. I am not sure. However seeing one of the sets a few months ago at Universal really helped with the buzz, it looked amazing! 
WOTW Set If I were to wrap this movie up, into a little sentence, I would say this. This is one of the scariest movies I have seen in a long time. This movie is what Independce Day, Signs, or any other alien movie that is supposed to generate fear tried to be. Libertie called it fucking intense. However you look at it, intense or scary, it left me literally jumping, covering my ears and gripping my seat. I was enthraled in it, with my mouth open with disbelief and left with fear when I got home that the aliens were coming to kill me. There is human drama. Fear of death. The amazingly done Alien CGI work. All mixed together in a story that I felt was truly worth telling and a movie that I can say was a pleasure to watch. During the movie I was really really into it. After the movierush had lessened, we reflected and kinda starting picking apart somethings, and then thought better of it. The movie has quite a few holes in it, but if you take it for what it is worth and do not dig deep into it, I think it is very well done and well worth seeing in the theater. If you are one to be botherd by holes, then you might not be as entertained by it as me. However I do have to mention that there was some things outside of holes in the story that must be mentioned. First of all, there were some CG shots that were not rendered to thier full potential, they were rushed and looked a little too fake for me. Also there were a couple of weird cuts where the flow was a little off, it seemed as though there was a rush on some CGI and editing, after looking into I found out what happened. This movie was not scheduled to be done until 2007, but Steven and Tom were free suddendly and they had 6 months to put this movie together, so they did. The Matix Reloaded has shots that rendred for a year. So clearly this is where some of those shooting problems arose. Also it was shot in 1.85:1 instead of 2.15 which I think left shots a bit thinner than they could have been for this story and for speilburg. I thought this was a poor choice. Then the ending, and don't mean the conflict resolution, which I thought was great. I mean the last 3 minutes. This was complete and total BULLSHIT! This movie was to be a leader in the world of movies. Something not made fun of. Something real and true and powerful. The last 3 minutes took all of that and flushed it down the toilet. It truly turned this great film into a sad cliche. So I take this movie minus the last 3 minutes. I take that last 3 minutes as…forced upon by powers that be. Maybe the Aliens made them do it. Tom and the Alien Baby were awesome. She truly is amazing and if she can make it past her teen years as a whole person I think she will be around a while. Reguardless of how crazy Tom is in real life, he really did a great job here and I think he has done such a great job in the last few years. He is getting better as an actor, but worse as a human. However after all of that I do have to say that this movie was very good, very scary, and very much worth the watch in the theater. I would say go see it this weekend if you have the time I liked it very much. 
