War of the Worlds Review

by Ryan Ellis (flickershows AT hotmail DOT com)
July 13th, 2005

War Of The Worlds (2005)
reviewed by Ryan Ellis
July 9, 2005
(spoiler in the first sentence only)

"From the moment the invaders arrived, breathed our air, ate, and drank, they were doomed." Am I the only one who had to stifle a laugh when narrator Morgan Freeman delivered that line with such dead seriousness? It was so funny because it's so very true. How DO we survive amidst all our poisons? [These invaders hadn't even tried a Big Mac or a Whopper yet. THOSE things'll kill ya.] Someone needs to send a message to all the aggressive aliens out there. If they can't hack it on Earth because of the way we're poisoning the land, sea, air, food, and water, just be patient. We're on course for self-extermination. Then the 3rd rock will be yours without a fight.

But in Steven Spielberg's interpretation of the H.G. Wells classic novel, 'War Of The Worlds', the alien invaders don't mind putting themselves out. They went to a lot of trouble to take us over and they probably want their own bug-eyed investors back on planet Watchamacallit to see that considerable expense and energy wasn't wasted. See, they buried their "Tripods" (towering three-legged attack machines) deep underground eons ago and have decided it's time to transport standard issue alien soldiers via lightning bolts into the bedrock. It's bizarre, but kinda cool. Up they come from the depths and start gunning for anything slack-jawed and two-legged.
Why so angry? Perhaps they figured a certain country wasn't bright enough to figure out what was going on since it re-elected Junior in late 2004. Perhaps Klaatu finally threw up his hands in disgust and told Gort we'd get no more nikto. Maybe E.T. and the intelligent beings from 'Close Encounters Of The Third Kind' and 'Contact' orchestrated the assault because they finally realized that we aren't worthy of their trust and friendship. Of course, the real reason the baddies in 'War Of The Worlds' are so vicious is because blood and carnage is profitable. And who knows better how to stuff vast sums of money into the bank than Spielberg and his star, Tom Cruise?
As the typical everyman you'll find in almost all of Spielberg's films, Cruise (as construction worker Ray Ferrier) is okay. He's playing a regular guy, not an action star. He's even reminiscent of Roy Scheider in 'Jaws', who was also in over his head and used his brains and some dumb luck to play keep-away with a deadly enemy. Cruise is still in clench mode from 'Collateral', although he deadpans a few funny lines (sometimes during bouts of full-fledged hysteria). He's a failed family man with 2 kids who would make sure he finishes last in the Father Of The Year contest. While this isn't even close to the uberstar's best performance, it's a bit of a departure to see Cruise play a desperate victim who doesn't have all the answers. Actually, he doesn't have ANY answers.

Dakota Fanning and Justin Chatwin play his two bratty children, Rachel and Robbie, while Mirando Otto is Mary Ann, the disapproving ex-wife. She and her second husband go away for the fateful attack weekend, leaving bad dad Ray in charge of the tots. The pregnant Otto gets one nice moment (a warm smile in response to a compliment from her ne'er-do-well ex), but is otherwise frittered away. Fanning is a skillful child actor, but she almost always seems like a caricature of an actual kid. Her prissy skills are no match for the natural acting talent that Henry Thomas, Drew Barrymore, and Cary Guffey showed in Spielberg's other blockbuster alien flicks.

Actors usually shine when this living legend is manning the bullhorn, and they're competent in 'War Of The Worlds' too. However, it was a tongue-in-cheek move to (mis)cast Tim Robbins as a violent weirdo who wants to fight back against these gigantic attackers with an axe and a shotgun. Robbins is just about as creepy here as he was in 'Mystic River'. He's smart enough to always seem like he has a secret and---both as an actor and as the character---that he's holding something back. And isn't it just unmitigated joy to see Maverick and Merlin uneasily working together again, even if they're no longer battling anonymous foreign jetfighters in 'Top Gun'?
In a film full of set pieces, the most memorable takes place when Harlan Ogilvy (Robbins) harbours the Ferrier family in his cellar. The attacks have spread outside the cities and the aliens start sending snaky electro-probes into basements to search for signs of life. The ensuing game of cat & mouse stretches out for too long, although it IS suspenseful...maybe because it's so quiet. If only the basement sequence didn't end when someone commits cold-blooded murder. It's hard to get past that, even if such "whatever it takes" behaviour is somewhat justifiable when everyone is facing imminent death and the actions of one of them might blow their cover.

But you're not going to slap down your cashola to see Cruise and Robbins skulk around in the dark. You're paying to see the humungoid F/X in 'War Of The Worlds'. They're appropriately monstrous and, better yet, the sound effects are eyeball-rattling. Interestingly, though, after the opening salvo, we don't get much in the way of ILM digi-effects until about the midway point. Much of the movie is just Cruise and the kids running, driving away really fast, and hiding from the mostly unseen villains. The fact that we hardly see the aliens is for the best because a little of their cliched selves goes a very long way.

Indeed, the story focuses completely on the family's race from imminent doom. We don't see what happens anywhere else because everything is shown from the Ferriers' point of view. If the scenes of parent/child arguments weren't the same "you never cared about me before, so I'm not going to listen to you now during Armageddon" disputes you'll find in many other disaster films, the director and his principle cast members might really be onto something. It's nice that even amongst all the destruction, the characters don't magically forget that they never liked each other very much. The actors play the pathos fairly well. Still, they just can't breathe enough life into the recycled screenplay.

This exact story has been told before, of course---by George Pal in 1953 and Orson Welles made himself famous by scaring the shit out of people with his radio broadcast in the late '30s. David Koepp and Josh Friedman share the writing credit for this modern movie and I wonder if it was one of THEM who decided to give us such anonymous aliens. Just when NASA is finding out about life on Mars, these guys take the Martians out of 'War Of The Worlds'. Are we afraid to offend our galactic neighbours? That's fitting, actually, because this is an era when offending someone is worse than killing them.
And since I brought politics into this, how does 'War Of The Worlds' compare to 9/11 and the recent London bombings? Does it need to? Is making a movie/reality comparison offensive? After all, a bustling city is blitzkrieged from out of nowhere and people run away screaming in terror. Thousands die, blood gets everywhere, bodies float down rivers on cue, and all seems lost. Okay, so some people will be bothered, but since when did a book or a movie or a song or a painting not have the right to reflect the political climate? No matter what terror cell springs up and goes on a murders spree, movies are going to continue killing people by the droves. And some of these movie victims are, yes, going to die at the hands of terrorists. A supposed 9/11 connection is not the reason to boycott 'War Of The Worlds'.

The fact that a braindead hack made a better movie than a brilliant craftsman just might be a reason to boycott, though. It was said a few weeks ago that 'War Of The Worlds' would finally give us the chance to see Spielberg's take on 'Independence Day'. After all, he wanted to direct the Wells' story in the mid-'90s, but was beaten to it by Roland Emmerich (whose 'ID4' was essentially a re-imagining of 'War Of The Worlds'). This is a staggering admission (and I think I need to go brush my teeth or something after I say this), but Roland Emmerich actually made a better movie than Steven Spielberg.

I wonder if the whole project was rushed. They started shooting late last year and got it finished in time for the 4th of July weekend. Maybe that turnaround was too fast to iron out the wrinkles. Spielberg's usual world-class suspects turn up again (John Williams composed the music, Janusz Kaminski cinematographered it, and Michael Kahn was the man in the cutting room) and they have done a professional job once again, but they don't seem like they were very inspired. [Or maybe, as I suggested, they didn't have ENOUGH TIME to be inspired.] No complaints about the technical side of things, but no compliments either.

There was simply no good reason to make this movie, unless Cruise and Spielberg just wanted to work together again and maybe even try to equal their spectacular 'Minority Report'. Nice idea, but that was a riveting story WITHOUT a foregone conclusion. 'War Of The Worlds' is more entertaining than many movies that will get released this year, but that doesn't make it any good. Considering it was made by one of the most imaginative directors of the past 30 years, there's not an original thought in it. And when you can't even top Roland Emmerich, you need to reload the idea machine and try something else.

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