Critic Reviews
73
Metascore
Generally Favorable
positive
33(83%)
mixed
6(15%)
negative
1(3%)
Showing 40 Critic Reviews
100
Working in the spirit of his predecessors but with the kind of uncanny special effects they could barely dream of, Spielberg has come up with an impressive production that is disturbing in the way only provocative science fiction can be.
100
Contains all of the hallmarks of classic genre Spielberg: It shows you things you've never seen before, instills an accompanying sense of awestruck wonder, and delivers long stretches of heightened, delirious excitement that remind you why people started going to the movies in the first place.
100
It is, simply, the alienation-invasion movie to beat all alien-invasion movies: meticulously detailed and expertly paced and photographed, with sights so spectacular and terrible that viewers will have to consciously remind themselves to close their mouths when their jaws drop open.
100
Steven Spielberg's War of the Worlds is huge and scary, moving and funny--another capper to a career that seems like an unending succession of captivations.
91
An attack-of-the-aliens disaster film crafted with sinister technological grandeur -- a true popcorn apocalypse.
90
A gritty, intense and supremely accomplished sci-fier.
90
It's the human struggle that makes this a sci-fi masterpiece.
90
With this genuinely big entertainment, powered by a beating heart, Steven Spielberg has put the summer back in summer movies.
88
Rivets and amazes, even if it falls just frustratingly short of the mind-expanding grandeur it could have had.
83
It's impossible to praise too highly the verve, skill and authenticity with which Spielberg brings off his alien invasion.
