War Of The Worlds

Steven Spielberg's adaptation of the classic H.G. Wells novel is one of the most frustrating films I have seen in quite a while. This movie seemed like a sure thing, a classic novel in the hands of a great director with a first rate cast. Looks can be deceiving. There are 2 basic stories at play in WOTW. One about aliens who come down to earth to take over, and another about a deadbeat dad who tries to keep himself and his kids safe during the invasion. The family drama worked fine, the war was a complete mess.

The one thing I have come to expect from a Steven Spielberg blockbuster is that it will be smarter than the average summer movie. That is not the case here. There are plot holes and holes in the logic of the film big enough to drive a truck through. Why would aliens set all this up thousands of years before humans to wage a war against humans, when they could have just taken the planet then? That is just one of the many examples of the dumbing down of WOTW, a movie that seems to have changed the good and kept the bad from the book. The aliens look like rehashes of previous movie aliens and the effects were not nearly as cool as I was expecting. Of course, the main problem with this movie, the thing that made me go from being mildly amused to totally disappointed is the terrible ending. This is one of the most anticlimactic endings in the history of film. And to make matters worse, it doesn't even fit with the rest of the film. It's as if Spielberg made a popcorn film for an hour and 45 minutes then tried to make it a serious sci-fi movie in the last 10 minutes. It is like A.I. all over again.

What makes this movie infinitely frustrating is that there is also a lot of good stuff here. The family drama portion of the film worked perfectly. Tom Cruise was believable both as the deadbeat dad and the likeable father he becomes. Despite the fact that I am one more stupid comment from wanting to punch Tom Cruise in the face, he is still a solid actor. Justin Chatwin and Dakota Fanning play the 2 kids. Chatwin is solid, but Fanning is the real star, her fear throughout the movie is unnerving and never lets you forget the carnage going on around them. Tim Robbins and Miranda Otto also pop up, but their roles are pretty 1-dimensional. There is a scene however between Robbins and Cruise toward the end of the movie that was a great scene, and much darker than anything you usually see in movies like this. And I think that is what makes this movie so frustrating, it tried to be both a summer blockbuster and a serious science fiction film and ultimately becomes neither.

Spielberg's use of September 11th references and imagery (along with Holocaust and WW2) is unnerving, but works in making you feel the realness of the situation. It was a great risk for him to do that, as most film industry people feel it is still to soon. Spielberg should be applauded for some of the things he does here and booed for others. A smarter script and this movie could have been a classic, but as it is we have a movie that is smart when convenient and dumb when convenient. A terrible ending, tons of plotholes, and a lack of visual originality ultimately doom War Of The Worlds to being one of the few Spielberg letdowns. Here's hoping he rights the ship for his Oscar hopeful Vengeance that's shooting now.