WAR OF THE WORLDS
Directed by Steven Spielberg
Cast: Tom Cruise, Dakota Fanning
Released 30th. June. 2005
Reviewed by F. Chong Rutherford
Stephen Spielberg’s War of the Worlds is probably the most faithful adaptation of the tale to date, at least in the United States. The lightning storms, the tripods, the red weeds, even the character of the artillery man have made it into this latest Stephen Spielberg spectacle.
THIS version of War of the Worlds is also a faithful homage to the infamous 1938 Orson Welles broadcast and the 1953 George Pal version of the same story. The 1938 version had the undercurrent of American fears of the then coming War in Europe, the 1953 version had the undercurrent of the Cold War, and this one will undoubtedly stir feelings about the current War on Terror. Most of the moviegoers flocking to see War of the Worlds probably haven’t read the book. These viewers will fall into three camps after seeing the new Tom Cruise & Sthephen Spielberg Summerblockbustervaganza, depending a little on whether they’ve paid more attention to Tom Cruise jumping up and down on Oprah’s couch or what’s
been happening on CNN. Come to think of it, a lot of that couch jumping was featured on CNN.
The first group will be people who love the film because they can laugh when they see people get turned into ash by heat rays as their clothes explode off of their bodies.
This group will have many theories about how good of a job THEY would have done in surviving the onslaught. For this group, there’s plenty of high-tension spectacle.
Tripods walk the Earth, bringing earthquakes, exploding cars, flying people, violet hued laser rays, horrific aliens and strange bells of death and doom. Tom Cruise as Ray Ferrier is their access point to this roller coaster. Ray is an “ordinary” dockworker staring down at the people below him with his job as an expert crane operator.
His character begins the film in swaggering Top Gun mode, all teeth and bravado. He’s a lousy father with no connection to the kids that have been dumped off at his place by Miranda “Aoewyn” Otto. At any moment, it feels like he’s going to go play volleyball with Goose … right up until the lightning storms go from fun light show to tragic harbinger of doom.
At this point, The Star is stripped of his persona, and a story of an emotionally
crippled man out to protect his unforgiving teenage son Robbie (played by Justin Chatwin) and precocious daughter Rachel (played by the equally intense Dakota Fanning) from the horrors of war begins. The turns the story takes are shocking and show people sometimes at their best, but mostly at their worst. War is evil, and the movie takes great pains to emphasize this point.
The second group of viewers will be people who see the movie, starting as it does in New Jersey, as a cheap attempt at emotional manipulation, with the Spielberg film using the imagery of the Al Qaida airplane hijackings on 09/11/01 to ground this otherworldly film in the here and now. This group will detest the movie, because for them it will be a dour reminder of September 11th, 2001. The scenes of clothes floating down to Earth. The image of a man covered in ash after a horrible event, realizing that his hair is filled with the dust of people. The wreckage of a downed airliner. This group will see this film as a reminder of their personal terror on that day. Whether or not these viewers choose to admit their fear is another matter.
The third group of viewers will be people who see a movie about the effect that a giant, superior, mechanized army can have on a people ill-equipped to face it. It’s for this third group that H.G. Wells wrote his novella, and it’s for this reason that divorcing politics from the works of H.G. Wells is like seeing Batman in action without his utility belt. Still, some fans of Wells can do this. They may find this version unacceptable simply because it does not take place in 19th century Great Britain.
Most of the social satire of War of the Worlds is replaced by the emotional arc of a man wanting to protect his family, and is thus subsumed. Instead, there are moments like a father wanting to protect his son from going to War against an enemy he knows they have no hope of defeating. In these moments, as a father tries to keep his only son from marching off to war, Justin Chatwin and Cruise get a chance to shine,. The structure of the film doesn?t let the audience follow the misadventure of the son, and instead follows the father and daughter, wondering if they will survive, wondering what is happening around them, terrified of the things in the dark around them as the red weed spreads across the land.
The ending is the place where most movie goers will undoubtedly feel conflicted; it
follows the novella note for note. If they were expecting a Summerblockbustervaganza ending, it isn’t here. Unlike Independence Day, there is no Jeff Goldblum/Will Smith/Getting-Jiggy-With-It-Swagger-While-We-Smoke-Cigars-Moment. Strangely, the utopianism of H.G. Wells becomes an American feel-good ending that leaves plot threads mysteriously resolved, but at the same time is as faithful to the original work as an American Summerblockbustervaganza can hope to be.
If you like spectacle and a gripping story with turns of action that are hard to predict,
this is a film for you. If scenes of carnage and the defeat of Americans at the hands of
a mechanized enemy bring up reminders of airplanes crashing into buildings, avoid the film. If you’re a fan of H.G. Wells, then DEFINITELY see the film and argue with your nerd friends about it for hours of family fun.
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