H. G. Wells' War of The Worlds (2005 Film) - Plot

Plot

Astronomer George Herbert and his wife Felicity are celebrating their 10th wedding anniversary. He and his son Alex look at Mars through their telescope. Instead, they see a meteor-like object. George's boss calls him in to investigate the object. Felicity takes Alex to Washington, D.C. without George, who promises to meet them when he is done working.

As George drives to work, his radio makes strange noises. His car then shuts down right as a large, flaming object crashes into the nearby hills. He goes to the crash site and finds a massive meteor in a crater. All of the cars and cellphones have somehow been disabled. A young woman named Audrey runs into George for help because her boyfriend Max (Edward DeRuiter) fell into the crater. George and Audrey encourage Max to climb out, but he is distracted by activity coming from the meteor. Suddenly, metallic tentacles grabs Max and everyone flees. Slowly, a large, crab-like Martian walker climbs out, incinerates Audrey with a heat-ray, and starts grabbing people. George manages to escape and makes his way home, where nothing electrical works. He starts walking toward Washington where he hopes to find his family at the Lincoln Memorial. He sets off to locate his brother, Matt, a Army Ranger in nearby Hopewell.

The next day, George comes to a bridge where soldiers are holding back civilian refugees. A mother, who believes the Martians are just terrorists tells George that Washington, along with New York City and Los Angeles, were invaded first. Another meteor crashes nearby and a walker attacks the soldiers. George escapes and runs into a soldier named Kerry Williams, whose entire squad was lost in battle. He agrees to travel with George to Hopewell. They meet Lt. Samuelson, who is outraged that the aliens killed his family and interested in George because he is a scientist. He tells George that Washington was completely wiped out and there are no survivors, not even the President. George and Kerry reach Hopewell, but the town was already invaded by walkers. They find Matt, who is fatally wounded. He eventually dies of his wounds while George and Kerry are separated during a new attack, with George escaping in a canoe.

After spending a day drifting downstream, George develops an extreme fever and spends two days in an abandoned car. He is found by Pastor Victor, an Australian. They find an unscathed neighborhood and find food and clothes at the veterinarian's home. George and the Pastor hide upstairs from the aliens' poisonous gas, where they find several vials of rabies vaccines. A giant explosion causes the house to collapse. George wakes hours later to find that a meteor has destroyed the neighborhood. He observes the aliens draining blood from living humans.

George plans to use a rabies vaccine against them. When a Martian enters the house, George injects it with the rabies vaccine and it quickly retreats. The alien returns and sprays acid over Victor, killing him in seconds. George hides the house's ruins until the aliens abandon the crater days later. He again runs into Kerry and Samuelson. Kerry insists that George cannot fight them, but Samuelson suddenly shoots Kerry in the head and George kills him and finally reaches Washington, which lies in ruin. Unable to find his family, he sees a single Martian and surrenders to it, having lost everything to the invaders. The alien however drops dead. Out of nowhere, a group of survivors appear and reveal that the aliens have been dying for several days from an airborne virus. Alex and Felicity are among the survivors and the family is tearfully reunited.

The Martians have been killed by bacteria, and with most of humanity wiped out, the survivors are left to rebuild humanity.