Amazon.com Essentials:
After the success of 1950's Destination Moon
and 1951's When Worlds
Collide, visionary producer George Pal brought the classic H.G. Wells story of a
Martian invasion to the big screen, and it instantly became a science
fiction classic and winner of the 1953 Academy Award for Best Special
Effects. It's a work of frightening imagination, with its manta-ray
spaceships armed with cobra-like probes that shoot a white-hot
disintegration ray. As formations of alien ships continue to wreak
destruction around the globe, the military is helpless to stop this
enemy while scientists race to find an effective weapon. Gene Barry
and Ann Robinson play the hero and heroine roles that were de rigueur
for movies like this in the '50s, and their encounter with one of the
Martians is as creepy today as it was in '53. It finally takes an
unseen threat--simple Earth bacteria--to conquer the alien invaders,
but not before War of the Worlds has provided a dazzling
display of impressive special effects. As memorable for its sound
effects as for its spectacular visions of destruction, this is a movie
for the ages--the kind of spectacular that inspired little kids such
as Steven Spielberg (not to mention Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin,
whose Independence
Day cribs liberally from the plot) and still packs a
punch. --Jeff Shannon
