Steven Speilberg is one of those names that, upon hearing it, instantly reminds you why you love movies. His name evokes the very essance of the film experience from a fan or audience perspective: storytelling. Speilberg, throughout the years, has redefined what that word means in relation to theatrical film releases, from the earliest hysteria caused by the groundbreaking Jaws to the emotional tour-de-fource Schindler's List that touched the lives of generations of men and women around the world. Filmmakers like this, who use the medium in it's purest form to propell us to a world of imagination and beauty, or incredible courage in the face of absolute horror, or even just to simply enter the lives of ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances... well, let's just say Speilberg doesn't have much company in this area.
War Of the Worlds is Speilberg's third visitation to otherwordly subjects. His first, Close Encounters Of the Third Kind broke new ground as being an epic story of the mystery surrounding an alien encounter with our planet. Ultimately, all of our fears are put to rest when they are peaceful vistors, who are just as curious of us as we are of them. E.T. The Exraterrestrial was his return to an alien story, this time, coming after such films as Ridley Scott's Alien and John Carpenter's remake of The Thing, dealt with a human who finds an alien, and must protect it from the paranoid and fearful agents of the US government. This film makes the statement that we need to stop reading science fiction, beacsue it's taught us that aliens are going to invade us, and detsroy our civilization.
In War Of the Worlds that is exactly the story that Speilberg finally tells us. They are invading our planet, taking it over, and they are here to destroy us. This film is breathtaking. I don't mean that completely in an awe-inspired way, either, I mean that the breathe is quite efficiently knocke dout of you by some of the scenes in this film. In fact, once the film begins to pick up momentum, it doesn't let up for about an hour or so. Most of the movie is one really long action sequence that keeps building and building and building. It let's you stop to take a breathe here and there, sure, but soon after, so soon that you are again caught off guard, it picks up where it left off... taking you along with it.
The acting by the principle characters Tom Cruise, Dakota Fanning, and Justin Chatwin is great. Tom Cruise gets the most praise being the A-list star, but his children in the film (who coincidentally both starred in Steven Speilberg's Taken are equally as excellent... I mean, you have to be a good actor to stand up to Tom Cruise and make it believable). The minor characters, which there are only a few of anyway, most notably portrayed by Miranda Otto of The Lord Of the Rings and Tim Robbins, are all pretty good too. The great thing about this film, and what sets it apart from other disaster films of recent memory, is that it focuses on a select few people and what they decide to do in the face of targedy, not a wide group of people spanning the country or the world. The authorities that have all the answers are absent, and so the characters only know what they have seen or heard persoanlly, which is very little. This simpel plot device make sthe suspense and terror of the events so much more potent.
The screenplay, written by David Koepp (Jurassic Park, Spider-Man) and Josh Friedman (Chain Reaction, Brian De Palma's Black Dahlia coming in 2006), is adapted from H.G.Wells' novel fo the same name. There are notable differences from the book, such as the film is set in present day, and thus the characters are all different, but the principles of te story remain, though updated. The film begins and ends with narration by Morgan Freeman, and brings the film together nicely. Tom Cruise plays a divorced working-man father, who gets his kids (Fanning and Chatwin) for the weekend. The relationship with his children is rocky at best, but he is trying, and that's enough for you to care about him. When the intergalactic sh*t hits the Earthly fan, they are thrust into a situation where they must take care of themselves. The children must listen to the father they know on a first name basis, and he must become the take-charge man that he's been running from. That's about all I can say...
The subtle depth to these characetrs is so perfect, because the chracters themselves, the actions they take, the emotions they endure or let loose, are so realistically written and performed. THAT, mor ethan anything, is what makes the film work. Speilberg knows how to make a great in-depth and detailed picture out of what is seemingly very simplistic, cut and dry material. Last year's The Terminal is a perfect example. The film is fairly simple, a man gets stuck in an airport and isn't allowed to leave, but the way the story is told and the little nuances that Tom Hanks brings to his character make it a really good, really enjoyable film. This is the same thing, just replace the comedy and light-heartedness with terror and grandioso action scenes.
The effects in this film, which are exquisite even for a Speilberg movie, earn it my personal pick for Best Visual Effects of the year, over Satr Wars: Revenge of the Sith and Harry Potter and the Goblet Of Fire. One scene in particular has me mesmerized each and every time I see it, because it doesn't have that CGI look to it. Pretty much ANY movie taht uses CGI, it has that look. It can be great, perfect, but it still has that look. This must've been done with a mix of meodels, live action, and CGI... I don't know. I wish there were actual special feature son the DVD release. Maybe there'll be a special edition, I don't know.
Overall, War Of the Worlds is a return to form for the science fiction genre. With the exception of Minority Report and A.I., there haven't really been any epic sci-fi movies. Star Wars is it's own thing, and over the years there've been countless almosts... such as all of Roland Emmerich's films... which, I'm actually glad this came out if for only the fact that I've been wanting something to show up Independence Day. I though ID4 was fun, but its one of the most unoriginal movies ever made, and now that this, one of the most ripped off by ID4, is out people can see how it's really done. I enjoyed this movie mroe than most movies this year... and if I had to amke a list right now, this would be number four on my list, behind Batman Begins, Crash, and Sin City. It's awesome... not much mor eto say than that realy.
I would like to point out one thing, though, that has been brought up when I'm talking about this film. People in general like to badmouth Speilberg for his film's endings... which I've always stood bythe endings, with the exception of the fates of certain characters in Jurassic Park. I don't want ot say anything about how they end War Of teh Worlds, but I will say that to end it any other way would be to let the story fall apart at the end, and not be fully realized. The film is, more than anything else, about a broken family bonding together again. All good directors have subplots that are in some way or another, what the movie is really about. I don't want to get into details about it and spoil anything, but it gets under my skin when people don't see the depth of a movie, and then try to nitpick the details to a story that they obviously don't understand. Watch it again if you have to, and then come to me about how he should've ended it.
That's it. DON'T buy the DVD, wait for a Special Edition, but definately rent this if you haven't seen it. Turn the lights off, crank the sound up, an enjoy...
T. Garth Simmons
11/05
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