War of the Worlds
The hype surrounding this movie had me skeptical at first, but after reading the book and watching a poor adaptation starring C. Thomas Howell, I had to see it. For those of you that don’t know, War of the Worlds is about a bunch of aliens that come to Earth to destroy mankind. That is the plot and that’s all you need to know.
The acting in this movie was exceptional. The children do a good job of acting; their performances encompass a wide range of emotions that are both realistic and well-done. Dakota Fanning is sickeningly cute and I found myself actually worrying about her safety in a couple of scenes. Tom Cruise exhibits his acting skills with the practiced ease of a summer blockbuster veteran, in the role of Ray Ferrier (Fairy-er?). Cruise plays the role of an ex-husband and a bad father extremely well. Ray Ferrier comes off the screen as your average, everyday guy. Tim Robbins character is convincingly creepy; Robbins crackles underneath the surface with an eerie electricity that leaves his scenes tainted with an uneasiness that had me squirming in my seat. I was also pleased to see Rick Gonzales in the role of Vincent. It’s too bad that Spielberg didn’t use more of Gonzales in his movie; I wanted Gonzales to run up and hop in the van with Cruise and family as they fled the city.
This movie, like most summer blockbusters, is all about the special effects. The alien tri-pods in this movie look great. They are exactly like I imagined them, even if they do seem a little too gigantic. The tri-pods are obviously CGI; the filmmakers do an adequate job of using fog and smoke effects to create a sense of realism on the unrealistically shiny and textureless surfaces. The heat ray scenes in this movie are fantastic. It was shocking to see people burst into clouds of dust.
The aliens were a little disappointing. I was hoping to see aliens like the ones that were described in the book, but instead I was privy to a bunch of slinking bigheaded monsters that walked like a bunch of insects. The eyes of the aliens were glassy and big like in a redneck’s abduction account, it’s too bad. Also, the aliens, when they moved around were totally unrealistic; it was as if I was watching a bunch of cartoon characters. The aliens seemed neither alien nor particularly terrifying.
I was disappointed at what was not in this film. The things that are in this film are done very well, but there are a couple of elements from the story that could have, and should have, been included in the movie. First off, the violence level of this movie was completely lackluster. Instead of making a PG-13 movie, Spielberg should have bit the bullet and made an R-rated movie. I know that the makers of this movie want to cash in on that lucrative family crowd and not limit themselves with an R-rating, but when I went to see the movie, there wasn’t a single family in the theater. I get the feeling that this movie would have made more money if it were rated R. The violence and gore would have heightened the sense of impending danger in this movie. With all of the destruction and explosions in this movie, there should have been at least a couple of bodies scattered around the sets. For Christ’s sake, a jumbo-jet crashes around a house that they are hiding in and their isn’t a single body in it.
I would have also liked to see the suffocating black gas from the book in the movie. Chemical warfare, that’s what’s hot playboy. Give me shots of people contorting and dying in pain-racked spasms. I also wanted more incubation time between the aliens landing and their emergence from the craters.
I was fully satisfied after leaving the theater. Were there some things that I was disappointed about? Yes. The ending of the movie and the re-appearance of a presumably dead character were a little too much for me. Were there some things I loved? Yes. The scene where Cruise tries to drive a mini-van through a large group of people is without a doubt the best scene of the movie and it doesn’t have a single alien in it. This movie is definitely worth seeing.
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