Based on he book by H.G. Wells, it's the original alien invasion story, this time brought up to modern times and saeen from the point of view of one ordinary man. After accounting for having been brought up to modern times, the look and plot are more heavily drawn from the book then the original film, but also with a few scenes obviously inspired by the old film. A nice mix of both sources. The one change from both sources is that here the ships are not seen to land but have already been under the ground for at least a few millenia.

From the camera-work to the first-person in the field view, it really does give a sort of news-footage feel that makes it seem all that more real. The impact is near visceral, and the film riveting. Make no mistake, this is a horror movie and not for the very young kiddies. The suspence, the adrenaline, the action and the terror, all in all this is a very good movie, one of thebest alien invasion films to hit the big screen.

Okay, now for the inevitable minor gripe. In both the book and first film the aliens come landing down in meteor-like craft from which three craft each emerge. In this one the landing pods have already been long burried and it's just the pilots who are spirited into them. This really doesn't make must sense from the alien's point of view. Why not just all come down out of the sky by surprise, why leave your attack craft buried down where the locals might chance upon them before things are ready? Also, the transporting of the pilots down into their craft implies that they are transporting down there FROM somewhere, which implies a mothership stuck somewhere in orbit just waiting to nuke everything if things go wrong. The only reason I can think of is this way would change the point of view they want for this movie. Imagine, meteors come crashing down into the middle of the city, causing everyone to evacuate and the national guard surrounding each impact zone. There wouldn't be any innocent people susrounding each landing zone to get blasted away to dust but a bunch of tank trying to hit it with everything they got before much of anything emerges. They wouldn't have the first-person everyman they'd want. Still though. long-buried ships that the pilots have to go leaping into doesn't make too much sense, but like I said it's just a minor gripe.

All in all this is a very excellent movie with a number of scenes that really drive home the point (watch out for the burning train, it's great). Go see it.