David Alan Basche .... Tim
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Cruise achieves the rank
of OT-VII in the Church of
Scientology. |
Spielberg’s version of H. G. Wells' War of the Worlds makes an enjoyable summer (well summer in the States, it’s freezing here) blockbuster. The result is brutal and scary, but still entertaining. At times things get nice and grizzly, and at others a great brooding atmosphere is conjured up. It could have been a classic, if it weren’t for the occasional implausibilities and Spielbergian hokiness. Also, the script (by Spielberg favourite David Koepp, along with Josh Friedman) focuses on one man and his two kids, specifically on their growing relationship through the crisis, but focuses on it a bit too much.
Strange weather patterns and electromagnetic storms start striking various parts of the planet. During the storms weird forms of lightning strike the ground. It turns out that the lightning is actually aliens being shot down to earth into tripods buried under the ground. The tripods rise up and start the job of wiping out humanity.
The film focuses on New York dock worker Ray Ferrier (Tom Cruise). His ex-wife Mary Ann has just dropped their kids off for their mandatory visit, which they don’t seem too thrilled about. These are his young daughter Rachel (Dakota Fanning) and angry teen Robbie (Justin Chatwin). Not long after they arrive the lightning starts striking and shuts down everything in New York. All the electricity and cars stop. Ray heads out to find out what the problem is and runs straight into one of the tripods rising from the ground.
These opening scenes are probably the best of the film. They’re ominous, and then pretty tense when Ray is running from the tripod. Just the kind of scene blockbusters are meant to have. Though when the pavement starts cracking, I must admit that the crowds hang around gawking long after I would have run off. But they need to be there to provide cool carnage for the tripod, carnage that you can’t feel too sorry for because they stood around gawking when they could have run off. Naturally our hero escapes, rounds up his kids and flees the city.
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Caught in the sprinklers: Another
priceless slapstick moment from
War of the Worlds. |
After the cool opening, the film starts to feel a bit aimless. Granted, aliens have invaded, so you can’t exactly start making plans for Christmas. But, if Koepp can make an alien invasion movie about a guy learning to be a good father, then he can make an alien adventure movie that has some story in the second act. There is good stuff in this part of the film, but it has that common movie feeling of settling down after a big opening act.
Fortunately, Ray had told his mechanic buddy how to get a car going on his way out of the house, because he comes back and steals it. Though, he knows how to get it going it never seems to occur to him that he could apply that knowledge to another car and he clings to this one car like Cruise’s claws in the back of Katie Holmes’ head. There’s also more car-related wackiness, because there always seems to be a clear path for Ray and his kids to drive through. When they drive out of the city there’s not a single clog on the freeway, just nicely spaced cars that can be weaved around. And a bit later, they're hiding in the basement of a house when a plane crashes into a neighbourhood. Not only didn’t the car, which was parked outside, not get smashed up, but there’s a handy path through the rubble.
The main story, aside from the aliens, about Ray relationship with his kids, is pretty well done (in the sense that I didn't want to poke my eyes out). You do need some main characters you care about when millions of people are getting randomly zapped. Robbie feels that Ray doesn’t care about him at all, which explodes in badly-timed tantrums. Usually I hate whiny teens in movies, but overall I didn’t hate him too much. Rachel seems to want her mother, and, like most young girls would be in her situation, is just basically scared and wants things back to normal. Obviously Ray learns to be a real father through the ordeal, and everybody’s happy.
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Tim Robbins wasn't the ideal choice
for the lead in the Ninja Gaiden
movie. |
But I'll end my review on gripes, which is what I feel like doing because they badly mar would could have been a great film. There’s a scene of a mechanical alien tentacle with an electronic eye stalking them around a basement. This scene is not only long and not very suspenseful, but at one point they hold a mirror up to it and it gets fooled. Fucking hell! This is a sensor arm from the technology of an advanced alien species. I think it would know that it was looking at a reflection of itself in the mirror.
Unfortunately, the biggest shit stain comes right at the end of the film. There’s a typically puke-inducing Spielberg moment that will (should) infuriate all who see it. Film makers have to remember that no matter how cool things were at the start of a film, that was two hours ago. Put schmalzy crap like this at the end and the first thing people say on the way out of the theatre is "Spielberg, he just couldn’t help fucking it up".
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