The residents of a small town are excited when a flaming meteor lands in the hills, until they discover it is the first of many transport devices from Mars bringing an army of invaders invincible to any man-made weapon, even the atomic bomb.
Too bad about the wooden cast, the tackily conventional romance, and a draggy religious message; but at least, given the time it was made, it isn't imbued with Cold War hysteria.
– ,
Time Out,
26 Jan 2006
fresh:
A half-century after its creation, the film's best moments are still so enjoyably unnerving that they easily carry a viewer through the necessary but inevitably dated exposition.
– Douglas Pratt,
Hollywood Reporter,
6 Dec 2005
fresh:
Mind those heat rays!
– A.H. Weiler,
New York Times,
31 Oct 2006
fresh:
War of the Worlds is a socko science-fiction feature, as fearsome as a film as was the Orson Welles 1938 radio interpretation of the H.G. Wells novel.
– Variety Staff,
Variety,
8 Jun 2007
fresh:
As the perfect crystallization of 50s ideology the film would be fascinating enough, but the special effects in this 1953 George Pal production also achieve a kind of dark, burnished apocalyptic beauty.