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| Source: rec.art.movies.reviews newsgroup | | Rating: 4
| Stars: Tom Cruise, Justin Chatwin, Dakota Fanning, Tim Robbins, Miranda Otto, David Alan Basche Director: Steven Spielberg Writers: Josh Friedman, David Koepp (based on novel by H.G. Wells) Distributor: Paramount/DreamWorks MPAA Rating: PG-13 for sci-fi violence and language Running time: 116 minutes
Script - 8
Performance - 7
Direction - 9
Cinematography - 10
Music/Sound- 9
Editing - 9
Production - 10
Total Score - 8.5 out of 10
When Orson Welles did the radio broadcast of H.G. Wells's WAR OF THE WORLDS in 1938, it scared the bejesus out of everyone. Today, the discerning audience is more skeptical and sophisticated, but Steven Spielberg's new cinematic version would most likely scare up a hell of a box office take.
New Yorker Ray Ferrier (Cruise) is an irresponsible father of teenager Robbie (Chatwin) and pre-teen Rachel (Fanning). Divorced from his wife Mary Ann (Otto), Ray has partial custody of the kids but he chooses only to see once every several weeks. Ray promises to take care of them when Mary Ann and her new husband Tim (Basche) leave to visit the in-laws in Boston. Instead, he's still the same slacker bum of a father.
Then something happens. A strange electro-magnetic storm hits the city, sending multiple bolts of lightning to the ground and disabling all electrical equipments. Soon, giant mechanical tripods emerge from the ground and begin to destroy the city, nuking people running for their lives. Ray snatches his kids and begins their own escape for survival. As the world fend for itself against the mass destruction of these alien intruders, Ray must learn to grow up as a father and defend his children.
"This is no war; it's an extermination" pretty much sums up the
stakes.
Cruise (COLLATERAL) plays a reluctant hero (well, sort of) with good intention. He's a solid and intense actor, although his range of emotions and expressions are rather limited here. But it doesn't matter. Fanning (HIDE AND SEEK) plays a girl who screams, kicks, yells and gets scared to good effect. She has almost as much screen time as Cruise. But it doesn't matter. Chatwin (TAKING LIVES) plays Ray's detached and defiant son with nice determination and steely eyes. But it doesn't matter. Robbins (CODE 46) plays the neurotic survivor Ogilvy with great creepiness - we don't know if we should root for the guy or the aliens who want to kill him. But it doesn't matter. Otto (LORD OF THE RINGS) and Basche (CARRY ME HOME) and just about 3000 other actors are merely extras. But it doesn't matter.
What does matter is the visuals and the storytelling director Spielberg imposes on us. Spielberg truly is a master storyteller. From the first frame on, the film is breathtaking. There is enough tension in almost every scene to suspend ten Brooklyn Bridges. The imageries are simply stunning, haunting, and oftentimes frightening. From the first appearance of the tripods to the mass destruction of the cities and the decimation of people, there are too many of these incredible moments to list. They knock the wind out of us.
In a way, the film is so taut and captivating that we would hardly notice the logical flaws or plot holes or the coincidences. I mean, if I really want to pick it apart, I could: from minor things such as video cameras and military vehicles and ferries that continue to work while everything else electrical (including cars) has been disabled, to the Hollywood-sappy ending that is a notch too optimistic and silly. There are many questions unanswered: Where do the aliens come from? What do they want? How do they get here? Why did they wait a million years and not before there were humans? Why didn't they do more research before arriving on our planet? Why do they kill people but harvest them at the same time? Perhaps it's the filmmakers' intention to leave these questions hanging in our heads. In the end, the answers are probably not that important.
Spielberg knows what really is important. His vision and the script by veteran screenwriter Koepp (SPIDER-MAN) touch on many grand themes, albeit sometimes superficially. From the existential question of our survival and the reversal of roles (we may think twice the next time we kill a nest of ants or slaughter a cow) to the ideas of individual heroism and total social collapse during crises. How naïve we all are and how scared we can be. Obviously, Spielberg evokes intense emotions with imageries that resemble 9/11 and its aftermath, but he shows restraint for not over-manipulating us. It doesn't matter. This film is so enthralling and mesmerizing that one can simply appreciate it for what it is: great, mind-blowing entertainment with a hopeful ending that leaves us breathless. And isn't that what this world of wars needs?
By : Ray Wong (http://reelreviews.blogspot.com/)
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| | Source: rec.art.movies.reviews newsgroup | | Rating: 2
| War of the Worlds Rating: ***1/2 (out of ****) A review by Matt Noller (http://uhmovies.tripod.com) Steven Spielberg's War of the Worlds is a profoundly frightening film, preying on our post-9/11 fears as well as his own unequaled skill as a technical craftsman to make what will likely be most of the best big-budget film released this year. I say most, because, for all of his other accomplishments here, Spielberg still can't avoid a pandering and falsely upbeat ending.
This is not a problem with the source material - H.G. Wells' novel -, which is just as potent as it was when originally published. Centered around the family of Ray Ferrier (Tom Cruise), War of the Worlds details an alien invasion in which there is little hope of mankind's survival; military strength is useless and victory can only be defined as "not dead yet." Left in charge of his estranged children, Rachel (Dakota Fanning) and Robbie (Justin Chatwin), Ray spends much of the movie either on the run or hiding in buildings, sequences that Spielberg invests with terrifying bluntness and immediacy.
>From the aliens' arrival to Ray's meeting with a potentially insane farmer (Tim Robbins), War of the Worlds is an impeccable feat of visceral filmmaking. Ray flees from the aliens' massive "tripods," and we follow in several long, shaky tracking shots, as buildings collapse and people are vaporized all around him. This is followed by the most stunning sequence in the film, a trip through a crowded freeway, in which Spielberg's camera, in one shot, swoops from the interior of the car to the panic on the streets, back into the car; it's a bravura evocation of the terror created in moments of destruction and confusion.
Cruise is miscast as a blue-collar worker, but it's largely irrelevant. He does his best to invest Ray with emotions beyond terror, and occasionally succeeds; but terror is all we really need here, and Fanning is more than up to the task, screaming and crying with devastating realism.
Thankfully, the film is also not afraid to shy away from the complex moral issues that arise in these situations. One sequence has Ray defending his car from an angry mob; no one is in the moral right, and how both Ray and the mob act serves as a particularly chilling reminder of mankind's selfishness when left to fend for itself. Or consider Ray's reaction to Robbins' unhinged survivalist, as he realizes that he may have to commit a murder to save the lives of his family.
It's a shame, then, that the ending is such a cop-out. It isn't how the invader's are defeated, which is the same as it was in the novel, for better or worse; no, it's the utterly implausible survival of a particular supporting character, an attempt at a happy ending that is at once hopelessly false and morally questionable. Should Ray not have to sacrifice, to suffer loss, just because he's the protagonist?
Spielberg lets the audience off the hook. We don't have to confront this sacrifice, because it wouldn't be happy, it wouldn't be right. It's a cheat and an insult, and a betrayal of the frighteningly grim film he had been fashioning up to that point. It's a misstep that could sink the film, if the rest of it weren't pretty much a masterpiece.
So thank God it is.
By : Matt Noller (http://www.robomod.net/mailman/listinfo/rec-arts-movies-reviews)
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War of the Worlds posters
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