War of the Worlds is a 2005 American science fiction disaster film and a loose adaptation of H. G. Wells's novel of the same name, directed by Steven Spielberg and written by Josh Friedman and David Koepp. It stars Tom Cruise as Ray Ferrier, a divorced dock worker estranged from his children (Dakota Fanning and Justin Chatwin) and living separately from them. As his ex-wife drops their children off for him to look after for a few days, the planet is invaded by aliens (loosely based on H. G. Wells' Martians) driving Tripods and as earth's armies are defeated, Ray tries to protect his children and flee to Boston to rejoin his ex-wife.
War of the Worlds marks Spielberg and Cruise's second collaboration, after the 2002 film Minority Report. The film was shot in 73 days, using five different sound stages as well as locations at California, Connecticut, New Jersey, Staten Island, and Virginia. The film was surrounded by a secrecy campaign so few details would be leaked before its release. Tie-in promotions were made with several companies, including Hitachi. The film was released in United States on 29 June and in United Kingdom on 1 July. War of the Worlds was a box office success, and became 2005's fourth most successful film both domestically, with $234 million in North America, and worldwide, with $591 million overall. At time of its release it was the highest grossing film starring Tom Cruise until Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol.
Plot
Ray Ferrier (Tom Cruise) is a container crane operator at a New Jersey port and is estranged from his children. He is visited by his ex-wife, Mary Ann (Miranda Otto), who drops off the children, Rachel (Dakota Fanning) and Robbie (Justin Chatwin), as she is going to visit her parents in Boston. Meanwhile T.V. reports tell of bizarre lightning storms which have knocked off power in parts of Japan and Ukraine. Robbie takes Ray's car out without his permission, so Ray starts searching for him. Outside, Ray notices a strange wall cloud, which starts to send out powerful lightning strikes, disabling all electronic devices in the area, including cars, forcing Robbie to come back. Ray heads down the street to investigate. He stops at a garage and tells Manny the local mechanic, to replace the solenoid on a dead car.
Ray reaches the place where multiple lighting bolts struck the ground and witnesses the ground heaving up as a massive machine with three long legs climbs out. The Tripod gives off a loud blaring sound before opening fire with heat-rays, vaporizing bystanders and destroying everything in its path. Ray manages to barely escape; he packs up his kids and leaves in the vehicle Manny repaired as the Tripod destroys the town. He drives to Mary Ann's house in suburban New Jersey to take refuge that night. With phone lines down and uncertain about the danger Ray decides that they should stay in the basement from where they hear loud explosions occur through the night. The next morning he discovers a crashed Boeing 747 in the street outside the house. He meets a news team stealing the flight's meals and surveying the wreckage. One of the reporters says that she was attached to a National Guard unit in the New Jersey Pine Barrens and Ray finds out through her that there is more than one Tripod on the rampage. She also shows him footage of Tripods attacking an undisclosed city, with the unknown pilots entering the machines through the lightning strikes. She speculates that the machines were in place for thousands of years meaning the invasion was being planned for a long time.
Ray decides to take the kids to Boston to be with their mother. Robbie, trying to join the fight against the aliens, tries to leave with the U.S. military, but Ray and Rachel stop him. They are forced to leave their car after a mob surrounds them and takes the vehicle by force. They later survive a Tripod attack which causes the sinking of a Hudson River ferry. The family then comes across the Marines Corps and Air Force battling the Tripods. Forced to choose between being separated from Rachel and preventing Robbie from joining the fight, Ray lets him go with the soldiers. Immediately afterwards the Tripods destroy all military resistance, presumably also killing Robbie. The Tripods are shown to be protected by an energy shield that makes them invulnerable. While escaping, Ray and Rachel are offered shelter by Harlan Ogilvy (Tim Robbins), who vows revenge on the aliens after his family was killed by them.
While hiding in Harlan's basement, they witness the Tripods spreading a strange red weed substance everywhere. They all hide from a snake-like probe and a group of three aliens who explore the basement. The next morning, Ogilvy suffers a mental breakdown while witnessing a Tripod harvesting blood and tissue from a human. Concerned that Ogilvy's yelling and ranting will attract the Tripods, Ray reluctantly kills Ogilvy to silence him. The basement hideout is exposed when a second probe catches them sleeping. Ray cripples the probe using an axe, but a panicked Rachel runs outside and is caught by the Tripod. As he chases after the Tripod and Rachel, Ray finds a grenade bandolier with several hand grenades in a destroyed Humvee and throws one of them at the Tripod to attract its attention. He is captured as he planned and placed in the same basket with Rachel and several other prisoners. Ray discovers Rachel is now in shock after she witnessed captives being sucked up one at a time into the ship to be harvested. As Ray finally calms her down, the aliens select Ray to pull him inside for harvesting, but the other prisoners manage to pull him back. The bandolier he was wearing was left inside the Tripod and Ray was able to pull all of the pins, causing a massive internal explosion, destroying the Tripod and freeing the captives.
Ray and Rachel arrive in a devastated Boston, where the red weeds are dying and the Tripods have been behaving erratically and crashing; infected by Earth pathogens, both the red weeds and the aliens are dying out. Ray notices that the force fields are down on a Tripod, prompting nearby soldiers to attack and destroy it. As a crowd approaches the downed machine, a hatch opens, revealing an alien that lets out a final growl before it dies. Ray and Rachel reach Mary Ann's parents' house, where Rachel is reunited with her mother and find to their surprise, Robbie, who has somehow survived the hilltop massacre.
