After reading the book (finally) last week and getting interested in the rerelease of the Jeff Wayne musical version, I managed to sneak out of the house long enough to see this Saturday. Not a bad movie - I thought Cruise did well, the effects (especially the sound effects) for the Martians were well-done, and it was a good treatment of the book. I prefer the 1893/London countryside setting Wells envisioned, but I'm trying not to be small-minded about this.
But at bottom, as much as I like the story, and as good a job as Spielberg did with it, it's basically a lousy plot for a movie. All hell breaks loose, and then the aliens just drop dead and the war is over. It's like Independence Day without the big finale. I suppose I should be grateful that they didn't try to change Wells' original vision, but, frankly, it was a let-down. I ended up caring more about the characters than I did the plot, but it was hard to escape a feeling that they just got lucky. This wasn't like surviving a sinking - eventually it's over and whew! you made it. It was someone stepping in in the middle of the sinking and bailing you out. I don't know what they could have done - I just know I wasn't satisfied with it as a movie. As a screen treatment of the tripods smashing through things - it was unparalleled. I especially liked the "call" that the tripods put out - the modern version of Wells' "Aloo" (or Wayne's "Ulla").