The War of the Worlds [1953 film]

Martians invade Earth.

Sadly, this is probably the most influential science fiction film ever, even more so than Star Wars. And that made me angry with it. Otherwise, I probably would have liked it. Sure, it's an awful movie, but it's the kind of awful that's good for a laugh - and sometimes it's really very funny. But its not just a harmless B movie - it's a big, successful, influential movie that happens to be B movie quality. And all of its awfulness persists in big budget Hollywood "science fiction" movies to this day. The writers would seem to hate science, and the source material, and especially women. Everyone involved in the production must either be incompetent, or think so little of the audience that they don't care. The show more potential for the movie to be great is so high that its hard to imagine them making a movie this bad without trying. In short, it's Michael Bay with strings instead of CGI.

Concept: A
Story: D
Characters: F
Dialog: F
Pacing: C
Cinematography: D
Special effects/design: C
Acting: D
Music: C

Enjoyment: D

GPA: 1.4/4 show less

The special effects are primitive, and occasionally laughable, and the acting varies quite a bit, but it's a solid story well told, and the message is still worth hearing. Despite its age it's still superior to the versions that followed--both Independence Day and the Tom Cruise version, which is impressive because it's a B-list movie and the others were major big budget films.