War of the Worlds (2005 film) has grossed $704,745,540 including DVD sales, making it the fourth highest grossing film of 2005, and the 66th highest grossing film worldwide. The film received generally positive reviews from critics. Review aggregator website Metacritic gave the film an average score of 73 based on 40 reviews. Rotten Tomatoes gives "War of the Worlds" a 75% "certified fresh" rating based on 255 reviews and the critical consensus: "Steven Spielberg's adaptation of War of the Worlds delivers on the thrill and paranoia of H.G. Wells' classic novel while impressively updating the action and effects for modern audiences." James Berardinelli praised the acting
The War of the Worlds of the Worlds" presents itself as a factual account of the Martian invasion. The narrator is a middle-class writer of philosophical papers, somewhat reminiscent of Doctor Kemp in "The Invisible Man", with characteristics similar to author Wells at the time of writing. The reader learns very little about the background of the narrator or indeed of anyone else in the novel; characterisation is unimportant. In fact none of the principal characters are named, aside from the astronomer Ogilvy. Wells trained as a science teacher during the latter half of the 1880s. One of his teachers was T. H. Huxley, famous