War of the Worlds (2005) Critic Reviews

Metascore®:

79 =
Based upon 16 Critic Reviews
See all War of the Worlds (2005) reviews at
Sorted by:
San Francisco Chronicle | Mick LaSalleAdd Critic to Favorites

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 the full review

Los Angeles Times | Kenneth TuranAdd Critic to Favorites

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 the full review

Entertainment Weekly | Owen GleibermanAdd Critic to Favorites

An attack-of-the-aliens disaster film crafted with sinister technological grandeur -- a true popcorn apocalypse.Read the full review

Variety | Todd McCarthyAdd Critic to Favorites

A gritty, intense and supremely accomplished sci-fier.Read the full review

Slate | David EdelsteinAdd Critic to Favorites

It's the human struggle that makes this a sci-fi masterpiece.Read the full review

Wall Street Journal | Joe MorgensternAdd Critic to Favorites

With this genuinely big entertainment, powered by a beating heart, Steven Spielberg has put the summer back in summer movies.Read the full review

The Hollywood Reporter | Kirk HoneycuttAdd Critic to Favorites

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 the full review

Washington Post | Stephen HunterAdd Critic to Favorites

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 the full review

USA Today | Claudia PuigAdd Critic to Favorites

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 the full review

Rolling Stone | Peter TraversAdd Critic to Favorites

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 the full review

Track Your Favorite Critics | Start Now