The War of the Worlds, 1953. Martians invade Earth. Directed by Byron Haskin. Written by Barré Lyndon, based on a book by H.G. Wells. Starring Gene Barry & Ann Robinson.
Concept: 4/4 (Great)
Story: 1/4 (Bad)
Characters: 0/4 (Terrible)
Dialog: 0/4 (Terrible)
Pacing: 2/4 (Indifferent)
Cinematography: 1/4 (Bad)
Special effects/design: 2/4 (Indifferent). I like the alien, but he's only on screen for a few seconds. Mostly it's ships on strings. Oh, and the sound effects are good - probably the only good thing about the movie.
Acting: 1/4 (Bad)
Music: 2/4 (Indifferent)
Subjective Rating: 3/10 (Bad, 1/4). 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 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.
Objective Rating (Average): 1.3/4 (Bad)
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