War of the Worlds: The Attack (2023)

Director: Junaid Syed
Starring: Sam Gittins, Vincent Regan, Lara Lemon
Unique Angle: A modern retelling of the story with a younger cast, focusing on three friends navigating the invasion together.

⚠️ Spoiler Alert!
These reviews contain major plot and character spoilers for both H.G. Wells’ original novel The War of the Worlds and the adaptation being discussed.

If you’re new to the story and want to experience it spoiler-free, consider reading the book or watching the adaptation first.

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True Adaptation Checklist Evaluation

Martian Invasion Essentials

Cylinders (Martian Landing Pods)

✅ Yes

The Martians arrive in modernized cylinder-like vessels.

Tripods

✅ Yes

Definitely present and well done with updated design.

Tentacles

✅ Yes

Both the Martians and their machines have tentacles.

Red Weed

✅ Yes

The red weed is present but underwhelming.

Black Smoke

❌ No

The black smoke is hinted at early, but not used again

Heat Ray

✅ Yes

The heat ray is present and used as a primary weapon by the tripods.

Snatching and Feeding on Humans

⚠️ Sort of

Humans are captured, but the feeding aspect is not a focus. One scene indicates humans used as fertilizer for Martian pods.

Martians Destroyed by Microorganisms

✅ Yes

The Martians are ultimately defeated by Earth’s microorganisms.

Martian Intelligence

✅ Yes

They knock out satellites, cut communications, and can track exhaust fumes.

Essential Characters

The Narrator

✅ Yes

The story follows a trio of friends but Herbert Wells serves as the primary POV. His character delivers the intro and outro.

The Curate

⚠️ Sort of

Includes a curate, but his portrayal as aggressive and predatory distorts the original theme of religious breakdown and helplessness.

The Artilleryman

⚠️ Sort of

Includes a version of the artilleryman, but his shift to a self-sacrificing hero undercuts the novel’s theme of delusional human ambition.

The Astronomer (e.g., Ogilvy)

✅ Yes

All 3 of the friends are astronomy students, one of whom is named Ogilvy.

The Brother (Secondary Perspective)

❌ No

No secondary perspective character.

The Wife (Emotional Anchor)

❌ No

Herbert’s mom goes to Leatherhead like the wife in the novel. This gives the group a destination but is otherwise a superficial nod.

Atmosphere and Allegory

Appropriate Era & Setting

✅ Yes

The setting is modernized but uses original UK locations and key events, updating the setting in a way that respects the story’s tone, structure, and themes of infrastructure collapse.

Societal Collapse

⚠️ Sort of

The film depicts chaos and futile resistance, but not much mass panic or migration.

No Human Victory

✅ Yes

Martians are defeated by nature.

Atmosphere of Horror and Helplessness

⚠️ Sort of

Some tension and fear are present, but the focus on action diminishes the sense of helplessness.

Narrator’s Psychological Decline

❌ No

No real psychological toll shown.

Cinematic & Immersive Details

Martian Sounds

❌ No

No distinctive audio signatures are used to emphasize the Martians or tripods.

Visuals of Red Weed and Black Smoke

❌ No

Red weed appears briefly but is visually unconvincing, especially in the final scene, where it resembles rope draped on trees. Black smoke is introduced but barely used.

Heat Ray Effects

✅ Yes

Effective visual impact, explodes humans to ash.

Desolate Landscapes

⚠️ Sort of

Destruction and desolation is shown but is limited in scope.

Decay and Rot

⚠️ Sort of

Minimal. Some rotting Martians and pods at end.

Bonus Features

The Thunder Child (Naval Resistance)

⚠️ Sort of

No direct equivalent, but Ben’s grenade sacrifice may vaguely nod to it.

Adaptation-Specific Creativity

✅ Yes

The Martians’ ability to track exhaust fumes is a clever update.

Observations and Analysis

Strengths:

The tripods and heat ray are well-executed, providing a sense of Martian technological superiority.
The microbial resolution remains faithful to Wells’ original ending and reinforces the novel’s evolutionary themes.

Weaknesses:

Herbert’s arc is more of a line. With no strong emotional anchor and no psychological decline, the audience is left with little reason to invest in his journey.
Many iconic elements, such as the red weed and black smoke, are woefully underdone.
Key characters like the Curate and Artilleryman are altered in ways that undermine the novel’s thematic contrasts.

Creative Deviations:

Exhaust-tracking Martians force survivors to abandon vehicles, pushing them to bicycles—a clever modernization of the novel’s regression to primitive means.
The Martians destroy satellites to disable global communications, a fitting update to the telegraph-cutting moment in Wells’ original.
Captured humans are used to fertilize Martian pods, a disturbing and original reproductive twist that departs from the book’s portrayal of feeding.

Faithfulness Rating

Loose Adaptation

The Attack is recognizably based on Wells’ novel, including cylinders, tripods, heat rays, and microbes. But major changes—like Herbert’s flat arc, the curate’s transformation into a villain, and the artilleryman’s heroic role—undermine the novel’s core themes of psychological collapse and delusional ambition. The modern update, while inventive, combined with the lack of emotional and philosophical depth, distances the film from Wells’ bleak allegory and original tone.

Our Verdict

It opened strong. The narrator delivered an updated version of the iconic intro, and for a while, the film seemed surprisingly faithful—checking off key plot points, modernizing intelligently, and even giving us a charmingly nerdy Ogilvy I immediately rooted for.

But then came the curate.

That moment didn’t just derail the film—it reframed it. What I had taken as confident faithfulness began to feel more like superficial mimicry. From that point on, I viewed everything through a more critical lens, and the cracks became impossible to ignore.

The artilleryman’s arc was repurposed into something noble but thematically hollow. Herbert’s arc never showed up at all. Key elements like the black smoke were introduced and forgotten, while others, like the red weed, were technically present but executed so poorly they barely registered.

I don’t mind updates. I don’t even mind creative liberties. I liked the concept of a trio of astronomy students navigating the invasion. I was genuinely relieved Ogilvy didn’t suffer the fate of his namesake.

What I do mind is completely dismantling the themes. And just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse—there’s that blatant sequel teaser at the end. No thank you.

This film opens with promise, then slowly sheds the very things that made The War of the Worlds endure. By the end, this adaptation felt like a copy that got blurrier the longer I looked at it.

Want to see it for yourself? You can watch The Attack on Amazon Prime.

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Featured image via TMDb – Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0