It’s time for the original War of the Worlds film. This one deals with the serious alien invasion that threatens to end all life on the planet. Unless the characters are able to lock in quickly, they will be destroyed. The older these films are, the easier it is to picture a complete alien takeover because there just aren’t enough weapons to fight them. This makes for a fun alien invasion film. Nothing fancy and no gimmicks, it’s just about the humans doing their best and eventually giving up hope.

The main character here is Clayton who happens to be fishing nearby when the first meteor lands. At first people figure it’s just an asteroid and they can make a lot of money off the tourists. Unfortunately it turns out that this is the incoming sign of an alien invasion and the creatures quickly appear all over the world. They are completely immune to conventional weaponry and have incredible numbers at their disposal. Can Clayton find a way to stop them or will he be crushed?

What makes this different from a lot of other alien invasion films is how there isn’t really a lot of hope for the humans. Usually we lose the first encounter but at least find a glimpse of a weakness and start to press the advantage. Instead in this one the humans are so far out of their depth that they are on the back foot the whole time. There is no weakness to be found and so eventually the only option is to give up. The governments may stay strong but the individual citizens quickly succumb to their base instincts of stealing and panicking.

The film is definitely not a good look for the pesky humans everywhere. We get a long scene of them basically attacking anyone in a car and destroying supplies. Even the briefest of hopes is removed once they knock Clayton out and take his devices. It showed a very big weakness that the humans have which is that their bonds are quickly destroyed at the first sign of distress. It almost makes you ready to root for the aliens because you’ve seen all that you’d like to of the ugliness in humanity.

Now there was a moment early on where you figure the weakness for the aliens could be light. They are quick to run from the flashlight in one scene and so that could have been interesting to pursue but the film doesn’t go in that direction. We do get a very sudden ending with their actual weakness. This always comes across as being very abrupt but otherwise the humans had been written into a corner.

Considering how old the film is, I’d say the effects are pretty good. Especially the special effects for when the humans are vaporized by the laser. It just looks a lot newer than I would have expected for this era in time. It’s clear that the film makers did a good job with this one. The general writing and script is also pretty solid. It’s perhaps a more jaded product than many others in its genre with humanity not deciding to band together this time but in a lot of ways it does feel like the more realistic approach. If aliens ever did appear in the real world, I have real doubts that people would stand together to fight them. Most likely there would just be a ton of in fighting the whole time.

Then Clayton is a decent main character but I won’t say that he’s great. Like the rest of humanity, he did completely give up on humanity. In the end he just wanted to find Sylvia so they could be together in their last moments. Romantic perhaps but this guy was one of the last hopes that the world had for victory. To see him just throw it all away was rough. I’m sure many would make the same decision though.

To his credit, Clayton had been trying a whole lot before that. They tried different approaches and possible weapons in order to end the alien threat. It just turned out that none of them were particularly effective here. The barriers that the aliens had were simply too powerful and not something that mere numbers could overcome. Early on the U.S. brings in a bunch of tanks to take on the first UFO and they are all vaporized within seconds.

As for Sylvia, she’s a solid main heroine. She does a good job of launching the exposition when she first showed up to talk about all of the scientists. Technically speaking I’d say the main cast is very small here though. You do have your share of supporting characters running around but there isn’t a lot of time for individual stories. It’s another good thing in the film’s corner which is that it decides to focus a lot on the invasion as a whole. I think that’s the right approach.

As always I will take the stance that trying to peacefully walk to an alien UFO is a bad idea though. We get this in two occasions. Once from a group of 3 guys who were hoping for global fame and then from a preacher who thought that the aliens could be reasoned with. In both cases I think this is just too naive. Even on the off chance that the aliens are peaceful, approaching them is not a bad idea because that will usually be seen as an aggressive move. The aliens have to make the first move and only if it’s a peaceful one can you move forward. Otherwise you just need to trust the government and let them start firing. It may sound callous but it’s the only real option.

Overall, The War of the Worlds is a pretty good film. In some ways I would say that it doesn’t necessarily stand out a ton from some of the other old alien invasion films but that’s because I tend to enjoy the genre a lot from all angles. I may not have this one in an elevated slot but it doesn’t really make any mistakes and does feel ahead of its time. You can really feel the dread throughout the movie even if the ending is on the happier side. I would recommend checking it out, I think you’ll be surprised at just how advanced the film feels.

Overall 7/10