********WARNING: Spoilers in the content of this review********

War of the Worlds (2005) – A film by Steven Speilberg

Intense. That is the best word to describe this film to anyone who hasn’t seen it. This film is intense, very intense. Gone are the red-scare tainted images of the George Pal version from the 1950’s, with spacecraft suspended on wires, or the minister casting out the demon. Also missing is Well’s simplistic vision from the novel (invaders from Mars). Speilberg has learned from his elders and brought us a fine tale of suspenseful tension and a microcosmic look at what it feels like to be a refugee of war. America has been a very privileged nation. There have been only two wars fought on our soil (arguable). The first was the revolutionary. The second was the Civil War.

We have never been without our conveniences. In one of the very first scenes in the film, the main character, played quite well by mister screwball himself, Tom Cruise, reaches for the light switch, the telephone, the refrigerator, even the cell phone; none of them work. He steps outside. The cars are dead. Nothing that uses electricity works. As humans who’ve become dependent on our things, its amazing to see how quickly we turn back into uncivil animals when we no longer have them, running around scared, frightened, and friendless. Neighborhoods degenerate into survival of the fittest.

Speilberg covers all that territory and more in this newest adaptation of H. G. Well’s science fiction book, including the famous opening and closing narration to help explain the setting and the finish, a trick Well’s managed to pull off in the book. The scale of this war would have to match one modern audiences would find exciting. This is nothing less than Armageddon. As in the original story, armies of unstoppable creatures set about wiping mankind from the face of the Earth. That’s the obvious part.

Steven only starts with those images. The real story is one of survival. Given these circumstances, where do you go? What do you do? Well, with a bit of luck, and a mechanic next door, you hop into the only car that works in Yonkers (or wherever they are) and head for the hills away from the city. Unfortunately for deadbeat dad Cruise (his weekend to watch the kids), he must drag along a stubborn teen currently hating his father, and an unbelieving eight-year-old girl, one who never stops asking questions.

It turns out they can’t run fast enough, and eventually, the war catches back up with them. In a series of very intense (there’s that word again) scenes, people run for their lives from the onslaught. Some people chose to be heroic, helping others; while other greedy people shoot each other for necessities. Cruise and his family are forced to flee in whatever way they can and end up in the basement of a farmhouse (this scene also taken from the book). There is a twist as a rather fanatical Tim Robbins already occupies the basement. In a very tension filled seven-minute scene, the aliens probe the house, looking for whatever they can find useful. Humans it turns out are naturally useful as food. Aren’t we always?

Cruise is constantly being torn by having to fight for his children’s survival versus saving others around him. This conflict continues through the film, even at the end. Speilberg’s use of conflict helps to drive the story forward while maintaining an air of tension, although most of us know the famous ending. Did he change the end from the book? I can’t give that away. That would be unforgivable. However I will mention one other thing about the technical part of the film.

As usual, Speilberg has the same technical people helping on every film. Michael Kahn, A.C.E. cuts action sequences in a way that paces the film rather evenly throughout with a fine balance between the quiet and the spastic. John Williams score is both bizarre and mundane. There is nothing that distinguishes itself (no soaring violins, no melodies to whistle). The score does underlie the material in a very supportive fashion, harking back to Williams’ earlier days when he was dubbed the composer to the disaster movies, as could easily be labeled this time, too. Dennis Muren, who gave Speilberg his aliens and his dinosaurs, returns to create menacing but beautiful ships, with creepy tentacles, and fog horns that blast before they annihilate.

War of the Worlds is a fantastic tale of science fiction, told with stark realism, and often showing brutal fearful images of mutilation. This is no film a child should see. When Cruise falls on top of his daughter to save her life, my son cried out to me in the darkness of the theater, “Dad, this is too much.” He covered his eyes. I felt guilty dragging him to see such terrifying images of people being reduced to dust or having their bodies sucked dry. When we stepped outside, I turned to apologize, only to see his smiling face say, “Wow! That was soooo good!” I’ll still make sure he doesn’t eat pizza tonight!