War of the Worlds

**

Directed by Steven Spielberg

Written by H.G. Wells (novel) and Josh Friedman

Starring: Tom Cruise, Miranda Otto, Dakota Fanning, Justin Chatwin, and Tim
Robbins

This is one of those films that you wait years for and when it finally arrives you wonder what the big deal was? Bringing Tom Cruise and Steven Spielberg together again
for another summer blockbuster, WoW is nothing more then standard summer fare. Lots of explosions and blood, no substance.

I don’t even think it was a really ‘good’ summer blockbuster. The special effects were great, but I still say that is not enough to buy me. I want a story to go along with the pretty colors.

They have taken the classic H.G. Wells novel and updated and ‘revised’ it with all the modern trappings that could be shoved into a two-hour film.

Shock, gore, blood, explosions, people being burned up, ugly aliens in big space ships; most of the elements were here but for some reason the rest of the needed ingredients just didn’t seem to connect.

The story should be familiar to most people, at least I hope you have either read the original novel or watched the Fantastic George Pal version with Gene Barry? Just in case, aliens have come to earth and they are not friendly little ‘ET’s’; these guys are nasty, out to wipe the planet clean and use it as their new home.

For the next few days, man is on the run. The aliens are unstoppable, with their tripod walkers, force shields, and heat rays they move across the nation and the planet destroying anything in their way and stopping to munch on a couple of people every now and then.

So, what didn’t I like about the movie? Tom Cruise for one thing and the lack of story for another. Cruise plays distant daddy Ray Ferrier who is much more interested in his own life then in the lives of his children who live with their mother and her successful new husband.

Most of the time, Cruise acts like this is a High School production of “Our Town”. While I am not normally a Cruise fan, he is a good actor. Here he is mostly a canned ham, with some of the worst expressions I have seen on a major star in years.

I swear, at one point I thought I was watching one of the people in “Reefer Madness” as they start looking around for another hit. He is just not good in this film. Maybe he didn’t care but I have seen people turn in better performances in some of the lower budget films I review.

While they tried to develop Cruise’s character near the beginning of the film, they never seemed to make him into someone you really liked. He arrives home a half hour late to spend the weekend with his children, and his ex-wife (Miranda Otto) spends a few minutes going through the house showing us just how selfish Ray is.

As if that is not enough, we get to see him tell his daughter (Fanning) to order some food while he goes to sleep for a few hours. Really devoted to the family, I guess.

The other character that I still do not know why they are in here is Tim Robbins. Come on, Tim Robbins? In a Science Fiction film? Sure, at first there was a chance he might be a sympathetic character and then turn him into a nutcase that Cruise will have to fight to the death to keep him quiet. But still, Tim Robbins?

The director has a difficult job, in that while delivering a film with excitement, drama, emotion and suspense, he also has to make you care about the characters in a movie, any movie, if he really wants the film to make an impact on the viewer.

Frankly, I really didn’t care a bit about any of these characters. Now, I like Dakota Fanning and I think she has the potential to be a great actress when she grows up. She just needs to do a little more work, gain a bit more experience. And keep her clothes on when she turns eighteen. Here, she is supposed to play a ten-year-old girl who screams a lot. A whole lot, and often and very loudly. She does this quite well.

The teen son, Robbie, is a jerk. Trying to run away all the time to watch the invaders and to try and fight back, he is almost like he is being drawn to them like a moth to a flame. At one point, I kept hoping he would be one of the bodies we see in a field. Ray and Robbie fight and insult each other like Archie and Meathead for most of the film with the world is falling apart around them and people are being ‘blowed up real good’

If “Family Drama” isn’t done right, it just does work in a Science Fiction film. And here, it just didn’t work. The family drama in Terminator 2? That worked; so did the stuff in Aliens, even though Ripley had to have a substitute family. And it has worked in lots of other films. Here, it was sort of like eating soup with a fork. It just never comes together to fill one.

The story moves along at it’s own pace, with lots of images of the continued cruelty of man to man which sort of makes you wonder who is worse, the invaders or us? After all, to them we might be less then ants; while we kill each other at will and for our own purposes.

Another problem is the appearance of the aliens. In the George Pal version, they are never seen. Just a few glimpses of them at various points. Here they are gallivanting around in their CGI glory, and they look like a cross between the one’s in Independence Day and a frog.

Next problem, at the start of the attack the aliens use an EMP to knock out all the electronic equipment within what looks like miles and miles from what we see just a few minutes later. But, as the aliens spring up from under the streets, guess what?

There are people using digital cameras and video recorders to take pictures of the ‘event’. Didn’t anyone explain to Mr. Spielberg that digital cameras and video recorders would not work following an EMP burst? You are a better director then this, Steven.

The good stuff? Yes, there is some don’t worry. The alien tripods look good, and some of the other special effects were downright amazing. The ferry scene is also pretty well done, but I still have some trouble wondering just why people would board this thing? Heck, congregating together like herded animals waiting to be slaughtered is not the brightest idea I can see in this situation.

But the train scene is my favorite and it will stay in my mind for a while.

The thing is, how can you have a cast like this, with a story like this and the special effects this one has and still make a movie that is at best, bland and at worst just stupid? If Norm Watson had directed this movie, even with Cruise it would not have the coverage it is getting. But, Spielberg has a legion of fans that think he can do no wrong.

But, my job is to talk about movies so that is what I am doing. I am supposed to tell you what I think of a movie, so you can be better prepared when you go buy that ticket.

Go watch Batman Begins or head to Hollywood Video and get the George Pal version of War of the Worlds. This should be watched at least once on the big screen if for nothing else the pretty pictures. But go during a matinee; don’t waste that sort of money on an evening showing of this loser.