The Tripods are coming -- to your TV

No more cute and cuddly extra-terrestrials for Steven Spielberg. His latest take on visitors from space, based on H.G. Wells' 1898 sci-fi novel, finds "E.T." and the "Close Encounters" aliens taking a back seat to a race of invaders bent on vaporizing every human on Earth and fueling themselves with our blood. Roy Neary and Elliott beware.\nFrom a technical standpoint, "War of the Worlds" is Spielberg's most accomplished film since "Saving Private Ryan" (narrowly surpassing "Minority Report"). As Ray Ferrier (Tom Cruise) and his children (scream-machine Dakota Fanning and a brooding Justin Chatwin) flee the alien extermination. Janusz Kaminski's cinematography beautifully evokes a society in tatters, yet why it was compromised from the original 2.35 to 1 aspect ratio into 1.85 to 1 or the DVD is a frustrating mystery. Industrial Light & Magic's visual effects work is the year's most Oscar-worthy (pending Peter Jackson's "King Kong"), and John Williams' score is used sparingly, but to terrific effect.\nThere are scenes in "War of the Worlds" that burrow into the brain and refuse to leave, such as the moment the first Tripod comes up from underground and the intense ferry sequence. Also notable are the escape from Ray's neighborhood in an old van in one seemingly but impossibly continuous crane shot, and the monumental battle between the military and the aliens taking place unseen, just over the top of a hill.\nFor those of you who might be avoiding this film because of Tom Cruise's press junket antics preceding and following its release, fear not. This is not a "Tom Cruise movie." Many actors could've filled Ray Ferrier's shoes, as well as Fanning's and Chatwin's, which is not to discount their performances, but only to point out that the actors are playing archetypes, with Spielberg pulling the strings and stamping "War of the Worlds" with his own vital stylistic mark.\nOn the features front, the two-disc edition of War doesn't skimp. Four extensive production diaries showcase the making of the film in more detail than on any previous Spielberg DVD, and the director himself provides an amount of insight far outdoing similar discussions on previous DVDs. "Designing the Enemy" offers a fun look into the design of the film's nimble aliens and their menacing Tripod war-machines. Also included are several useful mini-docs, namely "Revisiting the Invasion," "The H. G. Wells Legacy" and "Steven Spielberg and the Original War of the Worlds," all of which provide inspiration not only to check out George Pal and Byron Haskin's 1953 film interpretation of Wells' novel, but also to pick up the novel itself.\nYet with all due respect to Wells, Pal and Haskin, it's Spielberg's mastery of staging destruction and eye-popping set-pieces, as well as his astute understanding of how a bruised planet, and particularly one family unit, would react to such an invasion in these paranoid, post-9/11 times, that makes this particular telling of the story the most inspired, visceral and unnerving of them all.