War of the Worlds

Director: Steven Spielberg
Main Cast: Tom Cruise, Dakota Fanning, Miranda Otto, Tim Robbins, Justin Chatwin
Writer(s): H.G. Wells (novel), Josh Friedman & David Koepp (screenplay)
Director of Photography: Janusz Kaminski
Producer: Kathleen Kennedy & Colin Wilson
Editor(s): Michael Kahn
Original Score By: John Williams
Release Date: 2005 June 23

Ever since the first trailer for this movie was released and I borrowed the original 1953 version from a coworker I have been excited about this film’s potential. I wanted so badly to enjoy it. I attempted to assemble all the elements of good movie watching, mouth-watering movie snacks, the aura and massiveness of the Grauman's Chinese Theater in Hollywood, an interactive, electric audience, good company, but nothing could spare me from my disappointment. All the elements for a large scale summer blockbuster were present, but none of the pieces fit together properly.

Spielberg has a fine history of good science fiction filmmaking. E.T., Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and Minority Report are all excellent examples. But this one fell far short of his previous achievements. Call it the short production schedule, the insane Holmes/Cruise off screen antics, or the poor rewrite of great source material. Whatever it was, outstanding this wasn’t.

Cruise, plays a stereotypical Hollywood deadbeat dad. He lives as a belligerent bachelor with little regard for his job or his two kids with whom he ultimately faces the imminent attack. He thinks rarely of anything other than himself. His defiant son hates him and his confused daughter desires nothing more than his love and acceptance. When things start going sour (read: The aliens are attacking!), he leaves his kids alone to go and find out what is happening. The whole charade is played overtly more for the audience than for the character or story. Throughout the spectacle he appears exaggeratedly curious about everything. It seemed unnatural his standing there gaping while everyone else is running for their lives. This strange response occurred again and again throughout the film. His reaction kept reminding me that I was watching movie and never allowed me to get fully engulfed in the onscreen reality.

Cruise’s and, to some degree, the audience’s goal is to get the two kids safely back to their mother where, apparently, they can be well taken care of and live unthreatened in an “alien-free” zone. Even in the midst of the most heinous event mankind has ever witnessed Cruise just wants to dump his kids off and get on with his egocentric existence rebuilding auto engines in his kitchen.

In general, an audience is more willing to accept infrequent misguided occurrences if they are fully involved in the reality being portrayed on the screen. Regrettably, this film did not succeed in gaining enough control of the viewers for many of these items to be overlooked.

This film was bursting at the seams with implausible moments. I was glad for Cruise and his kids when the electrical solenoid in the body shop wasn’t affected by the lightning storm that caused everyone else’s cars to fail. And even more so when they finally made it out of town and the next storm still didn’t affect the minivan operation. Thank goodness it was a Chrysler. It was odd though that New York and the New Jersey countryside so heavily invaded, but Boston, one of the most populous and well known historic cities in the US, was miraculously untouched, in particular, the brownstone where Cruise’s ex-wife was staying and its surrounding counterparts. They all appeared to be in fine working order. I found it touching too that the grandparents were thoughtful enough to get dressed up and primped for the arrival of their granddaughter at the film’s finale. I guess their shower must have stopped working though because Cruise’s son was still dirty and bloody. Maybe he had just arrived after narrowly escaping the immense explosion that occurred on the New Jersey battle fields a state away. I suppose I shouldn’t be so critical. Cruise and Fanning were tired and probably didn’t notice all this happenstance. They had, after all, recently outsmarted an alien mechanical eye by hiding behind gaping plaster-less slats for half an hour. It is a good thing the aliens can’t really see in the dark that well, especially ones that had traveled across galaxies to reach earth and used advanced technology to remain hibernating undetected underground for decades. Cruise and Fanning should be thankful for that fact, and not paying attention to what grandma and grandpa are wearing. Especially since all the aliens, which were fine a few minutes prior, died at just the right moment to allow them to get there in the first place.

For the entire film the audience is in desperate need of someone or something to identify with. Cruise was a self-centered jerk. Fanning kept screaming and whining. Justin Chatwin, Cruise’s son, was so full of angst and resentment you almost wanted him to die. Robbins was a crazy psycho. The only ones left are the aliens and you knew they wouldn’t survive. Time after time viewers were hooked, but in the end are left with no one to root for. In fact, the filmmakers don’t even care enough to tell us what happened to the mom and little girl at the ferry who knew Cruise. They were introduced, a connection was made, and then two minutes later it was as if they had never even been seen. They were left behind and no one cared.

The movie’s storytelling technique, usually a Spielberg specialty, was quite weak. It was disjointed, hopping around from action sequence to action sequence and then leaving the spectators to sit through painfully long scenes of nothingness. It created a feeling of reading a book with pages torn out of it, confused and, at times, irrelevant. The revelation of what was occurring within the story was trite and forceful. The TV crew scavenging for food from the fallen aircraft was able to show the whole theater exactly what was going on in less than 2 minutes. Now this book we’re reading has entire chapters missing. It revealed too much too quickly with no substance or feeling. In its defense the film did occasionally build suspense, but it ended abruptly and often left a hollow unfulfilled feeling.

With regards to the acting, mediocrity abounded. Cruise, the focal point, was not at his best. Fanning was excellent, but I tired of the screaming and crying. She seemed to oscillate rather quickly between hysterical and disconnected. I’m not sure if that was intentional or merely a result of poor choices in the editing room. Chatwin, Cruise’s son in the film, was average as a teenager full of anxiety and abandonment issues. The real disappointment here was Tim Robbins. His crazed “monkey-on-the-loose” routine wore thin rapidly. I kept thinking they had switched off the film and were playing one of my favorite scenes from Nothing to Lose. Perhaps it was his character or the dialogue, but nevertheless quite excessive when compared with the other relatively flat characters.

The lack of any spiritual cry of desperation is in stark contrast to the natural human reaction to mass disaster. Instead, Fanning frequently retreats to her “safe place” by folding her arms in front of her, closing her eyes, and reciting a mantra. Oh yes, we do get to see some spritual content, a church is destroyed during the emergence of the first alien tripod. It seems impossible that in the middle of such a situation that all of mankind would be so devoid of any belief in God. Maybe they were just internalizing.

Despite its many downfalls, there were occasional glimpses of Spielberg’s more daring edginess. He is no Tarantino, but he will sporadically step out onto the edge of envelope-pushing and produce sequences that are inventive and often disturbing. Fanning’s horrific experience at the river was one of those scenes. It didn’t make sense, but it made an impact and for that it is noteworthy. Another particularly unsettling scene showed the alien tripods sucking the blood with long tentacle needles out of the backs of human captives only to spray it across the newly sprouting field of alien plant life. The idea of using human blood, our life-giving fluid, as a fertilizer was conceptually intriguing.

Few films are ever very successful at capturing the mob mentality and brutality that exists during times of extreme crisis. This one harnesses the primal instinct with lucid viciousness. Cruise and his kids are one of the few families with a working vehicle after the initial attacks. As they drive toward their safe haven, Boston, they come across a large group of people all heading in the same direction. The crowd is so thick that they must move at a snail’s pace through the throng. People begin to yell and pound the windows of the van trying to gain access. Fanning, obviously panicking, starts crying and screaming, something she does on and off with ear piercing prowess for the entire 116 minute running time. But as men from the crowd begin to break the windows and tear the glass with their bloody hands you begin to realize that her reaction may be warranted. As Cruise and the kids finally get torn from their vehicle the real melee begins. People are fighting and killing one another just to get their hands on a working car. The fear and anarchy is portrayed nearly without flaw.

Perhaps the best and most honest moment in the entire film was Cruise’s desperate attempt to calm his daughter’s nerves in the basement. All she wanted to hear was a lullaby to help her fall asleep while the battle raged on outside the home where they were hiding. Cruise, obviously pained by the fact that he didn’t know the song, resorts to singing the Beach Boys, Little Deuce Coupe. The agony that he felt as he fully began to realize that he was no father at all, unable to comfort his daughter at a time when she needed him most, was apparent and wonderfully communicated through the directing, the cinematography, the score, and the actors.

What summer blockbuster would be complete without a plethora of special effects? This movie doesn’t fail to impress. The digital effects that permeate most modern action flicks were acceptable, but not outstanding. It was the more traditional effects and sets that left my mouth gaping. The sinking ferry, the neighborhood destroyed by the crashing jetliner with turbofan still spinning in the driveway, and the surfacing of the first tripod at the suburban intersection were all phenomenal and a welcome sight after the invasion of CG.

There were few tributes to the original 1953 filmic interpretation of the H. G. Wells novel and those that did exist were uncomfortable and clumsy. Morgan Freeman lent his soothing tone to the opening and concluding voiceover, much like Cedric Hardwicke and Vittorio Cramer did in the original. The narration was quite similar, but felt problematic, misplaced, and even humorous in this modern remake. The mechanical eye that chased the characters in the basement of the farmhouse received a fresh new look, but the scene was drawn out, far-fetched, and tedious. Contrast this with the classic film where this scene was one of the more suspenseful moments of the entire movie.

In between bouts with boredom what I really ended up taking from this movie was a gigantic feeling of indifference. I had no real vested interest in seeing anyone kept safe from the upheaval. The feeling of worldwide panic and paranoia was unfortunately concentrated on the rural Eastern Seaboard and the story so focused that I never felt entirely interested or threatened.

I don’t normally like to evaluate what a movie could have been or attempt to alter it from the vision the filmmaking team had, but this time I just can’t help it. I am rewriting the ending. Here is how it could have played itself out and I, for one, would have been much more satisfied.

1. Don’t bring the son back. He’s dead. The giant explosion on the other side of the hill that left battle tanks and military helicopters engulfed in flames, it killed him. Let it be, the kid is gone. Don’t bother dwelling on it. It is implied. The audience is smart enough to figure out what happened. This then becomes the turning point for Cruise’s character. He realizes, amidst the destruction and loss, the cost of his decisions.
2. Cut the entire basement scene, including Tim Robbins. Use the “Little Deuce Coupe” sequence elsewhere.
3. Boston, along with every other major city is destroyed, as are Cruise’s ex-wife and ex-in-laws. Cruise must face the pain and heartache that comes from telling his daughter that her mother is gone.
4. After the aliens are gone and the pandemonium has ceased show Cruise and Fanning’s life in the aftermath of the destruction. He must become a responsible father and begin a new life with his daughter. Let the rising from the ashes themes begin.

All this is admittedly still Hollywood, but at least it is not insulting.

A note about the Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood: For anyone who has not attended this theater I highly suggest going, if only to experience one of the great remaining Movie Palaces. You can almost feel the electricity that would have existed during the 30’s and 40’s at a star studded movie premier. The theater has a 90 foot wide screen (Unfortunately, Spielberg must have shot this movie using unconventional equipment because the aspect ratio of 1.85 : 1 forced them to never fully open the screen curtains.) and seats around 1400 people. The audience is always involved and the !JBL speaker system is perhaps the best I have heard short of an IMAX theater. I highly recommend this venue. It rarely fails to impress or inspire.

Bottom Line: This film trips before it has even begun to stand. With all the ingredients present you expect it to deliver, but it never fully gets off the ground. A few shining moments and high production value can’t save the audience from the clouds of ash this movie is destined to become. It fails miserably at building the suspense and paranoia that its source material thrived on. The story plays much better as radio show hoax and hopefully this is the last translation to film that we will see. Judging by the sales figures, it appears my wish will likely not be realized.

An earth-invading, 5 out 10

~RG