I decided to watch this version of "The War of the Worlds" after being unimpressed by Steven Spielberg's recent remake. It follows the same basic storyline of Martians attacking the Earth, but is amazingly even more boring than the recent remake.
This film does have two commendable points, the sharp narration of Cedric Hardwicke and the special effects, which are impressive for their time. Unfortunately special effects aren't a great benefit because the film has little story beyond the fact that aliens attack the Earth and no tension, which even the Spielberg remake had at points. The acting in this film is fine, but the characters are superficial and don't help make this film interesting. However, I did learn a valuable lesson from one of the lead characters: scientists tend to have handy Geiger counters ready in their car.
The scene where the preacher walked into the field was decent, but for the most part this film is consistently boring. The religious overtones near the end of the film are laughably over-the-top as the people of America seek to survive the Martians by clustering in churches and praying. This film does have one key advantage over the more recent version: it is only 85 minutes, so it comes to its abrupt ending much sooner. However, this film resulted in George Pal having free reign to adapt other H.G. Wells novels to film. Luckily this led to the production of "The Time Machine" (1960), which is an infinitely more interesting adaptation than this film.
This film does have two commendable points, the sharp narration of Cedric Hardwicke and the special effects, which are impressive for their time. Unfortunately special effects aren't a great benefit because the film has little story beyond the fact that aliens attack the Earth and no tension, which even the Spielberg remake had at points. The acting in this film is fine, but the characters are superficial and don't help make this film interesting. However, I did learn a valuable lesson from one of the lead characters: scientists tend to have handy Geiger counters ready in their car.
The scene where the preacher walked into the field was decent, but for the most part this film is consistently boring. The religious overtones near the end of the film are laughably over-the-top as the people of America seek to survive the Martians by clustering in churches and praying. This film does have one key advantage over the more recent version: it is only 85 minutes, so it comes to its abrupt ending much sooner. However, this film resulted in George Pal having free reign to adapt other H.G. Wells novels to film. Luckily this led to the production of "The Time Machine" (1960), which is an infinitely more interesting adaptation than this film.