Rating: **
Director: Steven Spielberg
Cast: Tom Cruise, Dakota Fanning, Justin Chatwin and Tim Robbins
Review: Steven Spielberg’s War of the Worlds has a rather difficult hurdle to overcome: Why would anyone pay money to watch Operating Thetan Tom Cruise battle fake aliens on the big screen when they can watch him battle the real aliens that live in his head on live television three or four times a week?
War of the Worlds is a series of technically flawless special-effects sequences held tenuously together by a disjointed plot that cannot remain true to its own roots as a character study.
The movie is theoretically about how bad father Ray Ferrier (Cruise) becomes a good father to his two children—with the minor prompting of an alien invasion.
Cruise is joined on screen by miniature adult Dakota Fanning, who turns in a fairly believable performance as a young girl, Cruise’s daughter. Quite an accomplishment for someone who had an agent and a publicist while she was still a fetus.
Some other kid plays Cruise’s son. He came across as likable and seemed like a pretty good actor, but his subplot is nonsensical and I really couldn’t make myself give a rat’s ass about him one way or the other. So I won’t bother talking about him.
The problem with the film is that it cannot remain focused on this personal story. Spielberg is constantly distracted by the big scary aliens, so we get huge, amazing action set pieces that do nothing to advance the plot and ultimately add up to nothing. In fact, they detract from the real plot—the smaller, intimate story about Ray and his family.
To give Spielberg his due, he action sequences showing the aliens attacking are frighteningly real. The terrified populace running in the street effectively evoked memories of 9/11 – perhaps too effectively for lightweight summer entertainment. But the large-scale horror remains anonymous. It never touches Ray or his immediate family.
Spielberg’s protoge in spirit, M. Night Shyamalan, already made this movie. He called it Signs – a flawed film, but a film that never forgot what it was about.
Oh, I forgot about Tim Robbins. The film accidentally shipped with a 10 minute scene from a completely different movie featuring Robbins. I liked this movie, and I want to see the rest of it.
Signs – The movie Spielberg wanted to make.
Bowfinger – Watch Eddie Murphy’s performance as a spoiled movie star fighting the aliens that live in his brain with the help of the pseudo-religion “Mindhead.” Draw your own comparisons.
Battle of the Planets – Like War of the Worlds—except with poorly-animated Japanese superheroes…I guess it’s not really like War of the Worlds at all.
Minority Report – Spielberg and Cruise’s first collaboration is infinitely superior.
Independence Day – A truly stupid movie, but a movie that lacks the schizophrenia that plagues War of the Worlds.
July 14th, 2005 at 2:21 pm
It wasn’t that bad. I agree it had a major need for focus. I would have rather watched a movie about aliens than a character study featuring a dysfunctional family (because nobody ever did that one before) but I guess there’s no accounting for taste. The scene with Tim Robbins fit in so poorly that I totally forgot he was even in this movie until you mentioned it.
But I liked this movie, on the whole. I liked the feel that everything was at stake but nothing could be done to prevent a total loss. I think the excessive character development was an unnecessary distraction. I came for lasers and gore, goddammit. Don’t give me an after school special about a brooding teenager and a little girl who never gets tired of crying.
July 14th, 2005 at 2:30 pm
It’s beyond Spielberg’s ability to make a truly awful movie. But if you follow the plot of the book, which Spielberg did, there is no way to make the film about fighting aliens.
They catch the sniffles and die. There is no “Earth fights back” moment. So you have to come up with something else for your plot.
When the novel was written in the late 1800s, the idea of an alien invasion alone was so new that it was enough for the book to explore that concept.
We’ve gone through thousands of virtual alien invasions since then. We need something more.
July 14th, 2005 at 6:27 pm
I can appreciate that but these characters were so negative that I didn’t care whether the aliens turned them into dust and redvines. I was kinda hoping they would. I think sticking to the book was a mistake. It must have become clear early on that major revisions would have made a better movie.
July 14th, 2005 at 10:57 pm
After reading comment #3 from the defense, the prosecution rests, your honor.
Swede, you getting a gravatar? You post here enough.
July 15th, 2005 at 2:54 pm
Had I known we were arguing I would have squeezed in some personal attacks. I wasn’t saying this is a good movie, I just didn’t mind it’s flaws as much as you did. I went for the action and special effects, not the story they were supposed to be a backdrop to. And parts were really great. The spectacle alone was worth the price of admission. I don’t need anybody to tell me it’s alright to like this movie.
Anyway, I’ll pass on the gravitar for now. I use three or four different computers, none of which are mine, so the last thing I need is another username and password to memorize.
July 15th, 2005 at 3:15 pm
I wans’t trying to prove you “wrong,” per se. I just thought you did a pretty good job of summing up the reasons I didn’t like the movie.
To paraphrase Ebert, “I give it a marginal thumbs down.” There was enough good in there that I understand why some people were willing to overlook its flaws.
The gravatar is one-time signup. You don’t have to remember a user-name and password.
August 1st, 2005 at 12:33 pm
This movie kicked ass.
I loved it.
Every bit of it.
Tom Cruise is a dick.
Aliens kick everyone’s ass.
Cruise and family scramble clumsily and selfishly to survive.
Tim Robbins seems to represent some comradery and shelter but turns out to be a nutcase, stretching what Cruise must do to survive even further.
Cruise has closest close call of all.
Cruise, and the world, get lucky.
The plot made perfect sense to me. The movie moved quickly and the terror came unrlentingly. I was on the edge of my seat through it all.
July 15th, 2007 at 5:41 am