Amazon.com Video Essentials206205
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
DVD features
There's a whopper of a new feature--the original one-hour radio broadcast by Orson Welles's Mercury Players. It's a great listen, but that's not the end of the topnotch features. Film fan/director Joe Dante leads a fun and spirited commentary roundtable with two sci-fi movie experts pointing out interesting facts and underlining how a 1950s audience viewed this scary thriller (alas, the track was made before they could see Spielberg's remake). The other commentary is from lead actors Gene Barry and Ann Robinson, but better to catch their comments in the updated making-of featurette. A shorter featurette on H.G. Wells is thoughtful enough to include comments from filmmaker Nicholas Meyer, who made the author an action star in
Time After Time. The film transfer is excellent and better yet, the original stereo soundtrack--thought long lost--has been remastered and sounds great.
--Doug Thomas
