War of the Worlds
Paramount Pictures | Release Date: June 29, 2005 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
73
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 40 Critic Reviews
Positive:
33
Mixed:
6
Negative:
1
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Los Angeles TimesKenneth Turan
Working in the spirit of his predecessors but with the kind of uncanny special effects they could barely dream of, Spielberg has come up with an impressive production that is disturbing in the way only provocative science fiction can be. Read full review
100
Miami HeraldRene Rodriguez
Contains all of the hallmarks of classic genre Spielberg: It shows you things you've never seen before, instills an accompanying sense of awestruck wonder, and delivers long stretches of heightened, delirious excitement that remind you why people started going to the movies in the first place. Read full review
100
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalle
It is, simply, the alienation-invasion movie to beat all alien-invasion movies: meticulously detailed and expertly paced and photographed, with sights so spectacular and terrible that viewers will have to consciously remind themselves to close their mouths when their jaws drop open. Read full review
100
New York Magazine (Vulture)Ken Tucker
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. Read full review
91
Entertainment WeeklyOwen Gleiberman
An attack-of-the-aliens disaster film crafted with sinister technological grandeur -- a true popcorn apocalypse. Read full review
90
VarietyTodd McCarthy
A gritty, intense and supremely accomplished sci-fier. Read full review
90
SlateDavid Edelstein
It's the human struggle that makes this a sci-fi masterpiece. Read full review
90
Wall Street JournalJoe Morgenstern
With this genuinely big entertainment, powered by a beating heart, Steven Spielberg has put the summer back in summer movies.
88
Chicago TribuneMichael Wilmington
Rivets and amazes, even if it falls just frustratingly short of the mind-expanding grandeur it could have had. Read full review
83
Seattle Post-IntelligencerWilliam Arnold
It's impossible to praise too highly the verve, skill and authenticity with which Spielberg brings off his alien invasion. Read full review
80
The Hollywood ReporterKirk Honeycutt
Might be too realistic for its own good: The film takes perhaps a little too much glee in its abilities to manufacture mayhem. That being said, the ride is extraordinary. Read full review
80
Washington PostStephen Hunter
The audience is treated to one extraordinary vision after another; the sense of a world literally being destroyed around the principal actors, the sense of their flight through panic and destruction, the sense of concussion, collapse, rubble and ruin. Read full review
80
Dallas ObserverRobert Wilonsky
The filmmaker who once aimed to enchant his audiences with cheerful stories of beatific visitors from outer space now wants only to scare the hell out of us. E.T., as it turns out, is a mass murderer after all, and we are his Reese's Pieces. Read full review
80
L.A. WeeklyScott Foundas
The imagery is startling not just for its symbolic resonances, but for the breathless intensity with which it sears the screen. Read full review
80
EmpireColin Kennedy
Dark and stormy, even gloomy, this is a distinctly autumnal blockbuster from the man who invented summer. Read full review
80
The New RepublicStanley Kauffmann
Kaminski, who is as good as any cinematographer working today, matches the chromatic tones of shots to their content in ways that can only be called exciting. Read full review
78
Austin ChronicleMarc Savlov
Certainly one of the most lovingly crafted, end-of-the-world, cinematic feasts ever made, a spectacle of destruction and survival not even C.B DeMille could have envisioned. Read full review
75
Philadelphia InquirerCarrie Rickey
For the first 100 minutes of his 117-minute film Spielberg holds the audience in a grip of fear. When Ray and Rachel take refuge in the storm cellar of a survivalist (a miscast Tim Robbins), the director's grip relaxes only a bit, but the film never recovers from this excursion into the Gothic. Read full review
75
USA TodayClaudia Puig
But expect a logical plot, and you'll walk out of the theater with a host of questions, mostly concerning procedural points of the alien attack. Read full review
75
Christian Science MonitorDavid Sterritt
The film isn't quite excellent, though, since it sags in the middle and starts to seem repetitive. Read full review
75
Portland OregonianShawn Levy
Alas, Robbins is far more interesting than Cruise, and you wonder what the film would have been like if their roles were reversed -- if Robbins were the loser in search of redemption and Cruise the agitated freak in the basement. Read full review
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Liam Lacey
This is B-movie material all the way, yet it's not only watchable, it's engrossing. That's because the material is in the hands of an A-talent director, who knows, as few of his contemporaries do, how to manipulate the plastic qualities of a film: the lighting, editing, composition, camera movement and production values. Read full review
75
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
War of the Worlds is not vintage Spielberg, and it's on the grim side for a summer action blockbuster, but it's worth the time and money invested. Read full review
75
Rolling StonePeter Travers
It's those dark visions of destruction that stick, even when Spielberg pushes the script to an unlikely happy ending. Great foreplay, failed orgasm. Read full review
70
The A.V. ClubScott Tobias
In an unfortunate case of star casting, Cruise strains credibility as a hard-edged Jersey dockworker. Read full review
70
The New York TimesDana Stevens
Acting is not really the point of this movie, which seems to arise above all from Mr. Spielberg's desire to reaffirm that he is, along with everything else, a master of pure action filmmaking. Read full review
70
Film ThreatPete Vonder Haar
I thoroughly enjoyed the street level perspective of the world being destroyed, it just would've been nice if they hadn't crapped out at the end. Read full review
70
Washington PostMichael O'Sullivan
As is his wont, Spielberg can't resist stuffing the ending of the movie with a bit too much cheese and baloney. Despite those quibbles, War of the Worlds is taut, gripping and surprisingly dark filmmaking. Read full review
70
Village VoiceMichael Atkinson
Although it's thoroughly retooled, H.G. Wells's scenario doesn't allow for many soft landings, and the extreme respect for havoc on view quite properly keeps the Spielbergian cutesies to a minimum. Read full review
63
Baltimore SunMichael Sragow
Forget what Tom Cruise does outside his movies: What he does inside his movies is more than enough to wreck them. Read full review
63
New York PostLou Lumenick
Now that this technically impressive - but seriously flawed and self-referential - remake is finally in theaters to swell the July 4 weekend box office, conversation will doubtless shift to the lamest ending yet to a Steven Spielberg movie. Read full review
63
PremiereAaron Hillis
Has masterfully polished mechanics, some of the most seamless CGI effects in recent memory, and the Wells veneration is admirable. However, the film takes far too many creative shortcuts, like bookended narration and aliens that make strategically humanlike mistakes, completely incongruous to their technological superiority. Read full review
63
Boston GlobeTy Burr
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. Read full review
60
TV Guide MagazineMaitland McDonagh
It unfolds in the angst-haunted shadow of the 9'11 terror attacks and teeters on a thin edge of sheer panic. Read full review
60
The New YorkerDavid Denby
It’s the right role for Cruise, but the movie is so devoted to him, so star-driven, that it begins to seem a little demented. Read full review
50
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
A big, clunky movie containing some sensational sights but lacking the zest and joyous energy we expect from Steven Spielberg. Read full review
50
New York Daily NewsJami Bernard
Go for the extraordinary special effects, by all means, but not if you want to feel good about yourself or humanity. And heed the PG-13 rating, because this movie takes no prisoners. Read full review
50
Chicago ReaderJonathan Rosenbaum
Newly updated but shamelessly hokey, Steven Spielberg's version of the 1898 H.G. Wells yarn about murderous invaders from outer space starts off as a nimble scare show like "Jaws." Read full review
50
TimeRichard Corliss
The new film is a toss-up with George Pal's very watchable 1953 version: the special effects are even better here, the drama even lamer. Read full review
20
SalonStephanie Zacharek
Extravagant in movie terms but stingy in emotional ones, it embodies all of Spielberg's bad impulses and almost none of his good ones: It's a grand display of how well he knows how to work us over, and yet the desperation with which he tries to get to us is repulsive. Read full review
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