There's a longstanding movie riddle that asks the following question: Is it better to have a mediocre director and a great screenplay, or a great director and a mediocre screenplay? War of the Worlds, Steven Spielberg's entry into the 2005 summer box office derby, can be used as an argument for the latter scenario. To call the script (credited to Josh Friedman and David Koepp) "flawed" might be charitable. The original novel, penned in 1898 by H.G. Wells, seems almost quant by today's standards. Although the changes employed by Friedman and Koepp to modernize the story are adequate in displacing many of the book's events to a contemporary time frame, they result in a tale that is rife with logical errors. War of the Worlds is not watertight; in fact, it leaks like a sieve. But, with Spielberg at the helm, we hardly notice the chop in the water as we're taken on a smooth and somewhat breathless ride.
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