War of the Worlds: Critic Reviews

War of the Worlds is an attack-of-the-aliens disaster film crafted with sinister technological grandeur -- a true popcorn apocalypse.

Steven Spielberg's reasonably entertaining rendering of the 1898 H. G. Wells novel is an elemental story of predator and prey.

When it comes to searing and iconic visual imagery, Spielberg is still the best filmmaker around.

War of the Worlds is taut, gripping and surprisingly dark filmmaking.

Steven Spielberg's War of the Worlds is a close encounter of the blurred kind, an orchestration of chaos and panic and destruction as visceral as it can get.

War of the Worlds pushes some of the right buttons and enough of the wrong ones to make you wish that Spielberg would move on from aliens already and use his unparalleled talents to focus once more on earth.

It's a rare thing -- a summer movie that demands to be taken as a serious emotional experience.

The movie is no fun. There's none of the spirited adrenaline you expect from a bang-up blockbuster. I've docked it a star or so because it is nasty and mean-spirited, and plays on shocking allusions to 9/11 imagery.

We knew Spielberg had action chops, but didn't know he had this in him. This anti-E.T. is so rigorously realized it makes Independence Day look like Finding Neverland.

Steven Spielberg's meticulous, thrilling and chilling War of the Worlds is a testimony to tension.

Wow, indeed.

Steven Spielberg's War of the Worlds is huge and scary, moving and funny-another capper to a career that seems like an unending succession of captivations.

It's as if the aliens landed and everyone died so that Tom Cruise could grow up one more time.

War of the Worlds is a big, clunky movie containing some sensational sights but lacking the zest and joyous energy we expect from Steven Spielberg.

A first-class pop entertainment packed to the brim with astounding effects and near-non-stop action and suspense.

Spielberg's calculations turn out to be more prominent than any effects they could possibly produce, and the less pretentious 1953 version by producer George Pal emerges as more likable.

Urgent and pungent.

Spielberg seems to have resigned himself to the fact that he'll never match the impact of the radio show, but he's making no bones about going after that FX Oscar.

In his latest science-fiction epic, director Steven Spielberg shows he's better at blowing up the world than anyone else alive. Unfortunately, he also shows he has no idea how to put the world back together.

Drawbacks aside, with War of the Worlds, Hollywood is calling on Spielberg to deliver this summer's blockbuster, and he accomplishes the task. The movie is solid all the way around, and Spielberg's touches are everywhere.

Overall, the film is too lacking in feeling to provide a recognizably human experience.

There's stuff to make you go 'Wow!' but nothing you'll remember the next day.

A gritty, intense and supremely accomplished sci-fier about some distinctly unbenign alien invaders.

This disappointing War of the Worlds limps to a conclusion that mercifully insures there will not be a sequel.

Spielberg is pretty much incapable of making a terrible movie anymore. But he has plainly forgotten a lot of what makes a good popcorn movie since his Jurassic period. Where's the fun?