The DVD Beat: War of the Worlds

I never got to catch this in the theaters this past summer. Planning the wedding, work, and a couple of vacations really took up the second half of my summer, so I missed a lot of the later relases. But I was always really wanting to see this, and I actually avoided a lot of reviews. In fact the only two I think I really read were Chris's and KW's, who both loved it, so I was pretty enthused. Obviously, if I was just going to repeat their praises, I would probably not be writing this, so here's a bit of a different perspective on what I consider the biggest dissapointment of 2005, at least so far.

Speilberg can create a visual landscape better than just about any filmmaker out there. He knows how to use specail effects to work in a story, and not take away from it. He has a wonderful gift of visual storytelling that few have been able to match. When he's on, he's on fire. Like we don't know the list already, but it amazes me everytime I think about the great films he has in his filmography: E.T., Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, the Indiana Jones films, Schindler's List, Jurassic Park (some don't give this one much credit, but I love it), Minority Report (most underrated film of a few years back), Duel (best television film ever made), The Color Purple, Empire of the Sun, Saving Private Ryan (not as huge a fan as most, but there's a lot of great things in the film), Catch Me If You Can. He definately has his share of mediocrocy: Always, 1941, Hook, The Lost World, and A.I.-Artifical Intelligence. However, I truly believe, that War of the Worlds falls somewhere else entirely. This is Speilberg's worst film.

This film works visually, don't get me wrong. I enjoyed looking at it. All of the attacks are expertly shot. The tripods look cool; the aliens (the brief glimpse we get of them) are pretty cool looking. I loved the visual of the train on fire; I loved the scene where the alien device is scanning the farmhouse. Where this movie fails, where so many movies fail, is the story and execution of all of the events that take place. There's very little cohesion in this landscape that Speilbeg has created for us. There are inconsistencies abound, no development of characters, a lot of contrivances. When it comes down to it, the film is a mess.

I decided to check out some reviews and postings on the internet to find out what everyone else thought of this film. IMDB users gave it a 6.8 which isn't stellar, but isn't all bad either. I checked out Rotten Tomatoes, and this is where I found some interesting quotes from critics reviews of the film. Here's a sampling:


"96% of the movie works so damn well that you'll be more than willing to forgive the 4% that does not."
-- Scott Weinberg, EFILMCRITIC.COM

"May be the most efficiently built engine of escalating terror you will ever encounter. But Spielberg's technique serves no purpose this time except the visceral."
-- Jeffrey Westhoff, NORTHWEST HERALD (CRYSTAL LAKE, IL

"You could do a whole lot worse if you�re looking through generic science fiction or disaster movies, but Steven Spielberg�s standards are usually much higher than this."
-- Brian Webster, APOLLO GUIDE

"War of the Worlds does what it was made to do: Entertain."
-- Staci Layne Wilson, HORROR.COM

"Spielberg, whose previous alien visitation movies (E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial and Close Encounters of the Third Kind) are considerably more benign than this film. But he does this more mature, nightmarish material nearly as well."
-- Jeff Vice, DESERET NEWS, SALT LAKE CITY

"A piece of perfectly realized, pure entertainment."
-- Joshua Tyler, CINEMABLEND.

The last one's my favorite. What the hell does that mean? Not only is it entertainment, but it's realized entertainment. This is only a scattering, but they all basically read the same thing. Most critics, when it comes to reviewing the works of revered filmmakers, and sometimes actors, even if they don't like the film try to come up with a way to give the film a decent review anyways. I've never understood this; if you don't like a film, you don't like a film. Call a turkey, a turkey, don't be a freaking coward. KW and Chris are not included in this treatsie, since they really liked the film; they didn't tiptoe around their feeling about it, or act like they were giving it more credit than it deserved. That's the kind of reviewing I totally respect, and that's the kind of reviews I try to give you as well.

I was actually kind of into the film for about the first half, and then it took a huge downhill turn for me. The scene on the farmland where all this destruction is going on before our eyes, and Tom Cruise acutally let's his son run off to see what's going on. Why? Because his son asked nicely I guess. This scene has no credibility to it whatsoever; not after every action that Cruise's character has taken up to this point. I was digging so much how Speilberg was using the hysteria of these central characters to lead the story. I loved that for once, we get the perspective of the common man instead of the military, or a lone musclebound antihero like say a Schwarzenegger who defeats the aliens all by himself. It only got worse from this point on.

Then Tom Cruise and his daughter (Dakota Fanning, who shows how good she is at screaming throughout the entire film) decide to hide out in an abandoned farmhouse near by with a crazy, gung-ho kind of guy played by Tim Robbins. This is the defenition of a stereotypical Hollywood paranoiac. Robbins does what he can with the role, but it's an awful character, just plain awful. His role serves no purpose in the film except to build-up to what Cruise has to do to him. I don't want to give too much away for the few who haven't seen this, but let's just say this is supposed to lead to Cruise's realization of how bad a parent he has been. Yep, that's right, Speilberg has turned "War of the Worlds" into a movie about being a good parent. And the Cruise/Robbins confrontation is supposed to be the big turning point. After this, I assume Cruise is a good father. How you could possibly get that from all of this, I have no idea, but I'm pretty sure that's what Speilberg is going for here.

And after this, ten more minutes go by and the movie ends. And that's no joke. It just freaking ends. I knew what ending was coming. I've read the book, seen the original; I am well aware of the ending. In the book, it works pretty well; it's the type of ending that you can use a novel to expand a little bit and build up to it. In the original film, they do have some build-up. Speilberg doesn't handle it well at all; he just let's it happen. No build-up, no explanation, no nothing. The film just freaking ends. It's as if the studios said this movie needs to clock in at two hours, you get no more. And the movie's running time conviently enough is, 1:55.

I could go on and on. Terrible dialouge and exposistion. One of my favorites being at the beginning when Cruise's boss says "You know what you're problem is?" (which is a stupid cliched line to begin with and never leads anywhere interesting) and then never even answers his own question. A lot pointless drivil like that surrounds this film. The overall theme of good parenting is not a bad one, and Speilberg has tackled this subject a lot better when he introduced to us Indiana Jones's father in "The Last Crusade," but admist all of the chaos and explosions it never materializes into anything of worth. Maybe he should have just made this a mindless action film; I hate to dredge the bottom here, but I probably would have enjoyed that much more. Because whatever deep thoughts he was trying to show us here get lost quickly and quietly.

Overall, the film really doesn't work on any level for me except visually, but I've seen a lot of well shot films that aren't worth a damn. "Munich" looks awesome, and I hope it is, because I would hate to have to suffer through two bad Speilberg films in one year. That would really beg the question of whether there's any justice in the world.