Just
because she's a little girl with blonde hair,
the viewer is supposed to care? Give me a
break! No wait! Instead, give me a
shred of character development so I know who I
am rooting for and why.
Steven
Spielberg is about as consistently brilliant a
director as we have today. He rarely hits a
wrong note.
Tom Cruise may be one of the finest actors of
our time and is arguably the biggest, most liked
and most bankable movie star ever. He is easily
one of my very favorite actors.
Dakota Fanning is simply amazing. She is a very
rare talent at that age, and I hope she takes
the path less traveled by most young stars.
The H.G. Wells story is one of the most famous
ever told and has scared millions for decades.
So, with all that said, how is it that this film
is the biggest disappointment of 2005?
Tom Cruise plays Ray Ferrier, a dead-beat Dad
who gets his kids for the weekend when his
ex-wife (Miranda Otto) drops them off with her
new hubby.
After a few minutes of "pretend character
development", we hear some news reports about
lightning storms across the globe. This is
followed rather rapidly by some local lightning
storms which knock out all local power of any
kind. Watches are stopped. Cars don't start.
Electricity is dead. Ray sets out on foot to
investigate.
A few minutes later we see giant tripod machines
arise from beneath the earth and start zapping
people with lasers. Oddly enough, the people in
the streets seem calmly frozen as they watch the
machines rise above the skyline.
Anyway... what follows are innumerable sequences
of running and screaming and destruction and
timely rest periods so we can squeeze in a few
lines of cheesy dialogue.
There are some truly puzzling moments in this
screenplay... There is a dreadful sequence
involving Ray and his son, who wants to return
to fight the tripods rather than flee with his
family. The abysmal farewell is one of the most
failed manipulations in Spielberg's repertoire.
Another excruciating sequence involves a lunatic
character played by Tim Robbins. Nothing about
this basement scene rings true. It does nothing
but distract the already weak narrative. And the
tentacle fitted with a camera just feels like a
rehashed Spielberg technique to create
manufactured tension.
This film is laden with uninspired special
effects, weak characters, and a script that
reeks of cheese. The only thing that keeps it
mildly enjoyable is that Spielberg and Cruise
know how to create a spectacle. Thanks to them
"War of the Worlds" is not a boring film by any
means... it just doesn't have enough meat on the
bone to begin with and fails to surprise at any
turn. I found myself totally underwhelmed.
I will not detail the resolution of the film,
but I will say that it is Spielberg's weakest
ending ever. It was utterly ho-hum.
There will be a dozen summer blockbusters with
more thrills than this one... and that is
shocking when you consider the talent involved.
I can't believe that this is all there is... I
feel like there might have been an hour of
footage cut right out of the middle of this
film.
Save your money for something else... "War of
the Worlds" is a routine FX bonanza in an era
when the FX mavens have desensitized us with
bigger and better and huger and scarier and
louder and faster and yada, yada, yada. Every
new film promises more but it seems we have
reached a bottleneck of visual stimulus. It's
like, when you already have a billion dollars,
what's another million?
YAWN!
NEXT!
©
Written by TC Candler
Richard
Propes' Comment
Okay, it
took me forever but I finally managed to catch
this remake of "War of the Worlds." I will give
it this much credit...it is the best "War of the
Worlds" in 2005 (and there WERE two!).
Seriously, I'm amazed at how irritating I found
this film, how irritating I found the
performance of Dakota Fanning, and how much it
seemed like Cruise wasn't acting at all. This
film's best special effects were outside the
Martians. The burning train scene was
incredible, however, too many scenes looked
lifeless and choreographed. The staging of the
"panic" reminded me a lot of Peter Jackson's
choreography from "King Kong." This film never
hooked me, never intrigued me, and ultimately
lost my attention about halfway through. This is
easily one of my least favorite Spielberg films.
Jacob
Hall's Comment
I just got
home from it and my brother and myself were both
amazed by this film. I thought it was near
perfect, with the exception of the Hollywood
ending. Actually, I was truly shocked by your
rating when I saw it. Perhaps it's because I am
a much bigger science fiction fan than you, or
maybe it's because I love the novel and felt
that the movie actually rang very close to it.
Oh well. Your review does make sense, so kudos
on that, but I do wonder if we saw the same
movie.
