Kidskycom It's funny watching the elements come together in this complicated scam. On one hand, the set-up isn't quite as complex as it seems, but there's an easy sense of fun in every exchange.

CrawlerChunky In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

SanEat A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

FirstWitch A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

Dan Ashley (DanLives1980) 'Without Warning' was a mock news broadcast TV movie along the same lines as Orson Wells's 'War of the Worlds' radio adaptation. Being that it was made in the mid-'90s, it doesn't know moderation when it comes to piling on the cheese! Its gimmick of being shot in the style of consistent news broadcasting for the duration falls flat in places because whereas the likes of Jane Kaszmareck (probably spelled it wrong - the mum from 'Malcolm in the Middle') provides some seriously good acting, she's then let down by the show being so unconvincing in every other way that she just looks like she's crying over the corpse of her career; that or cramps.I know it was just television and how limited it was at the time, but even the sound effects and static interference visuals were poorly done. They irritated me more than anything.Television should never try to be pantomime and nobody should be expected to call endless badly scripted talking entertainment.

dl43 Screen and theater acting techniques may bode well toward establishing a sense of drama within a realm where clearcut emotions, facial expressions, and unnaturally fluent speech patterns may enhanced form of medium clearly intended toward entertainment value, but in terms of attempting to emulate real-life behaviors, these methodologies almost always fall flat.Thus, therein lies the essence of the problems with this movie, notwithstanding the problems with its storyline, in that the melodramatic clichés, overemotional expressions, unbroken sentence structures and laughable bits of overacting send this movie's pretensions toward realism crashing to the ground with greater impact than the "asteroids" that serve as its subject matter.Notice how the news anchors maintain persistent eye contact with the camera, never glancing downward to look at their notes, as they are clearly reciting lines from a perfectly memorized and persistently rehearsed script. Seeking the all too recognizable imperfections of everyday conversation, such as "um"s, "yknow"s, apprehensive pauses or even so much as a broken sentence? You won't find it here, as "Without Warning"s depiction of "real life" clearly emits within an alternate universe where every bit of every day conversation is uttered with stringent adherence to grammatical correctness, exaggerated fluctuations in tone clearly designed to emphasize the character's ever present mental status and overzealous emotional expressions, lest the content of one's speech fail to properly clarify one's state of mind for the intellectually impaired.One will also notice on-site news broadcasts lacking the characteristic confinement of audio cues emitting solely from a microphone, as the camera's seem to pick up background noises and surrounding ambiance with unbelievable clarity.Minus the expressions, the behaviors of each and everyone involve serve as further reminders to the audience that they are in fact watching a movie. When spotting a girl who appears to have mysteriously been deposited at the center of a meteor impact site, the anchorwoman proceeds to "check on her" by immediately shoving the microphone in her face to record an odd verbal pattern which ultimately serves as one of the movie's preposterous "twists". No examining her. No inquiring as to whether she's okay. No muttering impressions that the child obviously appears to be in shock. Simply setting the immediate stage for a metaphorical "speech" that was clearly all too staged from the get go. At one point, an air force general holds a press conference with which to inform the public as to a series of facts which have already been established by prior broadcasts, then at the first sign of queries, holds an all too obviously "stunned" expression for several seconds, before declaring "no more questions", a gesture that practically screams out, "Yes, I'm definitely hiding something". A) Nice overacting, and B), why hold a press conference if you're essentially not going to say anything that people didn't know already? One of the most laughable bits that boasts further credentials as to the movie's propensity for melodramatics and lack of logic depicts one of the news anchors on site of the impending impact zone of another "asteroid" amidst the military's plan to demolish it before impact. As the screen brightens, he proceeds to stumble around in the midst of an hysterical panic, questioning his colleague at the news room "WHY AREN'T THEY SHOOTING AT IT???!!!!" A) A one-way ticket to the Royal Hospital For Overracting for you, sir! (consult Monty Python's Ypres sketch for more information) and B) You're colleague is a news anchor; how the F would he know? Clearly, one would need a twenty-series encyclopedia just to document every instance in which the movie's execution registers anything but the documentary-like impression that the filmmakers were striving for, but the storyline contains enough problems as it is.One scientist's perfect deductions concludes that the first two "asteroids" were deliberately deposited in sparsely populated zones in preparation for guiding the third "vehicle" to its destination, the latter of which was destroyed by what he considers our "overzealous" use of an anti-satellite missile. If these aliens needed "beacons" to land their welcome wagon, how did they manage to land the preceding probes with such precision?The scientist proceeds to berate our "aggressive" behavior as having "declared war" on an alien species, and thus the remainder of the film proceeds to further "document" their revenge. So, this intellectually superior race of extraterrestrials tossed two over-sized rocks at our planet, killed quite a number of people, yet couldn't even contemplate how a civilization on the receiving end might perceive these gestures as a threat? Kudos to the movie for conceptualizing by far the dumbest technologically advanced race ever to permeate the universe.Other illogical fallacies include the military's decision to transport the scientist in question (from within the country I might add) via F-16 (in order to naturally speed up the ETA). Clearly, given the distance traversed, the use of a fighter jet wouldn't make much of a decisive difference to merit this gesture, while the movie's ostensible implications that the jet would be cruising to its destination at top speed downplays the lack of fuel efficiency accorded the process of proceeding anywhere for considerable lengths on full afterburner.With its overpopulation of plot holes, clichés, and innumerable little cues in the field of acting that completely foil any impressions to the public that what they're seeing is "real", this pretentious attempt to cash in the mock-documentary genre couldn't have been executed more poorly if the filmmaker's had planned it that way.

mreesm This is not really a review but it must be said. I am English and watched the film on a cable channel that showed the film with no commerical breaks stating how the entire affair of the apocalypse was totally fictitious. And I must say that both myself and my innocent family sat through this apparently 'real' news flash and to be put lightly, I (censored)ing (censored) myself! I was 8 years old and it may well have scarred me for life and it left us hugging together infront of our tvscreen of static waiting for the alien meteors to kill us.But it probably doest have the same effect on DVD.

NBrodar Shown 30 October, 1994, the Anniversary of the radio broadcast of War Of The Worlds, Without Warning is a tribute to the legendary radio broadcast. The film effectively represents the feel of War of the Worlds, by using a real life news anchor, Sander Vanocur, and newslike camera work. The effect was so real, that thousands of people called TV stations asking if it was real. Without Warning is a well executed salute to the War of the Worlds broadcasts of the 1930s. I highly recommend it for anyone interested in War of the Worlds, and the recent asteroid movies, Deep Impact and Armageddon.