Without a shadow of a doubt, the first hour and change of 2005’s War of the Worlds comfortably ranks among the 21st Century’s finest examples of sci-fi cinema, leading everyone to believe that an all-time classic was on the cards.
Of course, that wasn’t exactly outside the realms of possibility when you had one of the greatest directors in the history of cinema partnering up with the single biggest star in the business, with Steven Spielberg and Tom Cruise having already delivered a minor masterpiece in the genre when they first teamed up three years previously for Minority Report.
The fact that War of the Worlds turned out as good as it did was even more remarkable when you consider that the entire thing was made in eight months, with principal photography lasting a mere 73 days before it was thrown into theaters less than three quarters of a year after Spielberg and Cruise’s first day on set.
However, after several barnstorming set pieces, an unnerving sense of paranoia, and the post-9/11 metaphors being laid on thick, the third act undoes a lot of that great work by failing to live up the dizzying heights of what had come before, leading to a rather underwhelming conclusion that felt a great deal more deflating than it should, and ultimately robbed War of the Worlds of its chance to enter the pantheon of all-time greats.
That being said, it’s two titans teaming up in a mega budget blockbuster about the end of the world, so it’s still an undeniably entertaining epic that continues to draw in a crowd on streaming, with FlixPatrol having named War of the Worlds as one of the top-viewed features on the Paramount Plus rankings this week.