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The War of the Worlds Movie Review

The War of the Worlds is a 1953 science fiction film that is one of the most popular genre films of the fifties.
It is of course based on the eponymous novel written by H. G. Wells and even though I respect the author, a lot of the things have changed since 1898 so of course this material is going to be dated by today’s SF standards. And that is why they chose to adapt it differently and add that Cold War/atomic bomb aspect to it, but I am afraid that they again made it the product of its time.

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“We know now we can’t beat their machines.

We’ve got to beat them”

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The aliens attacking Earth for resourses is a conventional, archetypal sci-fi premise, but here it is executed in the best way possible so I didn’t mind it as much. And even though the religious overtones in the ending are overly aggressive and came out of nowhere, I still liked that twist ending and it was the best and most interesting way to finish the movie.
The War of the Worlds is a blockbuster, I don’t care what anyone else says, blockbusters existed way before 1975. Here you have a lot of action, but also some necessary humor as well as the epic tone to it along with some post-apocalyptic sequences. And I liked that about it. Watching a 1950s blockbuster was an interesting experience and a lot of fun. No matter what you think of it, you cannot deny its huge entertainment factor.
What the movie gets wrong is the characters. The character development is truly mediocre and this is one of those movies where you don’t care for the human characters and you just wanna follow those aliens. I guess Dr. Forrester is fine as the lead, though highly clichéd, but Sylvia is just awful. Oh my god, did I hate her character! She is basically a screaming, annoying bitch and one of the 50s weakest, most frustrating female characters for sure. The acting is also not the greatest and sometimes it is quite poor.

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But the film has some good characters that appear in very small roles such as those rednecks who get killed by the Martians first. They were so funny and they made me laugh honestly. The scene in the beginning where a man looks at his friends’ cards while he’s on the phone is also very funny and that goofy humor was present quite a bit in the film and I liked it a lot.
On a purely scientific level, the film is ridiculous. The Martians are the aliens which is beyond stupid and why would they destroy even the buildings is beyond me. But this is one of those fun sci-fi movies, blockbusters that are meant to be entertaining and watching it as such, it succeeds in spades.

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The War of the Worlds is a technical marvel for its time. Truly the special effects are groundbreaking. I liked the aliens’ design a lot and they were portrayed convincingly. And I admired the choice to have them shown in just two scenes and only once fully. Certainly some scenes are too campy, but for its time the movie is actually pretty advanced and you can see how expensive it must have been. The ships look fine and those cameras and electric eye also movie convincingly. The score is also very good and the sound effects are particularly terrific and memorable. The film is also very well edited and consistently engaging throughout its whole, quite short running time.
The War of the Worlds is certainly dated in its archetypal concept plus the human characters and acting are quite poor, but the film is a lot of fun and it succeeds in spades as an entertaining 50s blockbuster with some pretty good humor too. The special effects are outstanding for its time, the sound is great and the movie is fun enough that you can forgive it for its many flaws.