Movie Review - The War of the Worlds

The original & the best! This is still a very good and very watchable film even now. All the Martian "sounds" are pretty much part of the mainstay of Science Fiction sound effects today.
The 1st big mistake is the heat ray that the ship fires to kill the first 3 men when the "meteor" hatch unscrews. The EMP(electro magnetic pulse) that seems to stop watches. Back in 1953 most if not all watches would be clockwork, EMP would NOT effect clockwork). The film sets The Martians as totally different from humans, creating an "Us & Them" situation mirroring the East Versus West fears of The Cold War in an already paranoid America telling it's people to beware of Reds Under The Bed. Of course the first response is to send in the military to try and suppress the Martians. Even though only 3 men and a plane and its crew have been destroyed, it is already clear that back then the concept of "acceptable losses" had not been formed.

The reaction to "blast them right off the Earth", is a typical macho attitude of the time with America thinking there is nothing their military can't stop. The Priest who has the idea to try to communicate is acting as the voice of reason which is totally ignored of course. He is of course unaware that 3 men already tried this & died. For 1953 the special effects of the ships flying is still quite good and stands the test of time pretty well. The middle of the film is pretty dull, with the capture of the electronic eye and the Martian Blood. It seems to only be there to fill time until they decide to drop a nuclear weapon on the Martians.

Again the Americans trying to show superior firepower, almost mirroring their actions in WWII.
No-one ever bothers to find out why the Martians came, what they wanted. Those things seem to be unimportant to the people of Earth. It's funny that they think using a bomb will allow people to go back to their homes when they would be unable to returns for years after because of the radiation. The fact that so many people look at the blast (it would burn out their retina's) and that one of the scientists tries to ask about the result by radio (the blast would knock it out for miles around) are two more VERY big goofs. Also the evacuation of the cities is far too calm and orderly, there would be mass panic everywhere.

At least the scenes of looting and manic chaos seem real. And another goof, the main scientist goes past lots of abandoned cars in the cities but he'd already been told anything on wheels was being hijacked. People turn to religion as they think it's the end of the world but the ships just start falling out of the sky as though it's divine intervention. In the end it's left to the scientists to try and find a way to stop the Martians which ends up being something so simple that kills them, the ordinary germs.