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Thread: War Of The Worlds -- A New Thread

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    War Of The Worlds -- A New Thread

    I'm starting a new thread because my review has little to do with the discussions of terrorism, colonialism, and Wells in the previous War of the Worlds thread, and having just seen it myself, I wonder if somebody else may have only now seen it and want to post a new comment on the movie.

    [COLOR=DARK-BLUE]Steven Spielberg: War of the Worlds (2005)[/COLOR]

    Sound and fury

    Review by Chris Knipp

    War of the Worlds is largely a reversion to a Fifties Sci-Fi scare movie, with far more splendid and real-looking effects but less of a worldview or point than those earlier things had. The effects are terrific, but the conceptions are no advance, perhaps even a regression. These silly pod creatures, with their various pod-offspring or excrescences, that all wither away like the aliens at the end of Shyamalan's Signs -- allergic to terrestrial microorganisms instead of H2O -- if they're such superior beings, how come they have to go out and mow down humans one by one? To scare us in an old-fashioned way, must be the answer. But there is no time allowed to speculate as to their purpose (other than extermination) since all Tom Cruise and his two children do is flee -- to mama. But to get back to the creatures on vast spindly stilts: if they're so menacing and powerful, why can't they find three people in a basement (where Tim Robbins helps provide the movie's most tedious minutes)? The screenplay of War of the Worlds is contemptible, and needless to say whatever points H.G. Wells was making have been dropped. But the effects, especially in the big crowd scenes and when some New Jersey streets are crumbling, are real-looking and awesome. Some of the simple desperation of cheaper, but more human recent end-of-the-world movies like Michael Haneke's recent Hour of the Wolf is evoked as Cruise's son Robbie (Justin Chatwin) and daughter Rachel (Dakota Fanning) are almost whisked away in a darkened field and a crowd struggles to get onto a ferryboat. The end is as lame as that of Roland Emmerich's The Day After Tomorrow's, whose trajectory it much resembles: going home to mama resolves the problem of a wrecked planet.

    Spielberg has always used children, sometimes in heartrending, sometimes in purely manipulative ways. This time he begins with a divorced couple with shared custody and a contrast of class and attitude. Ray Ferrier (Cruise) is a surly construction worker, macho and uncooperative on the job, unable to bother with his little girl and young teenage son who're deposited with him on weekends by his ex-wife Mary Ann (Miranda Otto), who's off to her parents' in Boston. The world erupts when freak electric storms herald an invasion of monsters out of the earth which destroy much -- but not all! -- around the holes they emerge from with horrific blasts of sound. So Ray and the two kids don't have to decide how to spend the weekend. They go on an expedition -- in (wonder of wonders) the only car for miles around that runs after the storms (it was the solenoids--smart Ray to think of it!) -- first to the big McMansion Mary Ann occupies with her new husband in a posh suburb, then when that turns into a war zone overnight, on to grandpa and grandma's place in Boston. Heroically inclined Robbie runs off in a field -- presumably to join the army at fourteen -- but is at the grandparents when Ray gets there: wonder of wonders! Little Rachel (perhaps the braver of the two) stays to weather Tim Robbins' dialogue in that dank basement.

    Tom Cruise hasn't had a good role other than Collateral's nihilist hit man -- which was a very good one, in a beautifully crafted movie -- in years. In War of the Worlds, he's been accused of sentimentalizing his character, playing for our sympathy when he began as a prick. This is a misreading of the screenplay, which has this quite natural progress toward caring for his kids built into it; this isn't Cruise's betrayal of his role. He's okay, but he has nothing to deal with. He hardly deserves credit for not hamming it up. It's not a sure thing that he knows how to ham it up. Dakota Fanning is excellent. She takes us through a lot of emotions the action calls for that the movie would lack without her. The kitsch pseudo-ecological thinking behind The Day After Tomorrow looks like Newton and Einstein next to Spielberg's War of the Worlds.

    Still, Spielberg provides entertainment and some state-of-the-art thrills with his awesome effects, not so much the monsters and their reaching tentacles and insect bodies and faces, which we have seen too often before, as with the cracking up of streets and falling down of buildings, and some splendid devastation, notably the wreckage of houses and cars and airplanes outside Miranda Otto's McMansion, and for the manipulation of crowds, especially around the ferry landing.

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    A Good Read

    It's funny. I got into the previous thread so late, I never did actually read the original review. If I had, I could have saved myself a lot of thought and writing because the post that started it all, really did cover most of what I had wanted to say. Good job! I'm glad I had to chance to really read it. [Well, for the website administrator - what happened to the easily accessible archive movie forum?]. Sometimes it's nice to get a chance to go back conveniently.

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    MAJOR SPOILER - PLEASE DON'T READ IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THE FILM



    I still can't get over the end of the film. Speilberg couldn't have been more contrite. Not only does the son (who should have been boiled in oil) show up perfectly unharmed with a welcoming smile on his face; but the grandparents just happen to be the stars of the original "War of the Worlds," Gene Barry.

    I'm sorry. I am a huge Speilberg fan, but even Steven makes a stinker from time to time, just as Hitch, Ford and others have done. So many mistakes in this film detract from the flow of the story. I was extremely disappointed. The film did "ok" business, but word of mouth and many critics (including Ebert) spoke out against this mess. With holes as big as a tunnel in the logic of execution, here is another attempt by Speilberg to harken back to the ET and CEOT3K days. He should stick to doing original stuff instead of someone else's vision (A.I.) or outlandish remakes, like this absurd drama.

    I found your criticism insightful as usual, Chris, and right on the money. However, I believe you gave Speilberg too much credit for delivering entertainment ("Speilberg provides entertainment"). If by entertainment you're referring to a series of pretty images with some fairly good music in the background (go get popcorn during the dramatic parts), then perhaps you have a point. Personally, I found the acting a bore, Robbins way over the top, along with the rest of the cast. I'm hoping he'll be pulling back a bit for "Munich" scheduled now for Christmas (re: the 1972 terrorist attack during the Olympics).

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    Cheerleading Section

    I hate to became a follower seemingly without my own opinion, bendng in the wind, but cinemabon's comments are consistent with Chris Knipp's in a harsher way and I too had many of the same intense feelings that cinemabon's did, though I felt A.I. was much better that perhaps cinemabon felt.

    In "The War of the Worlds" remake, update there were many hard to believe scenes that made watching the movie difficult, to suspend disbelief and enjoy the movie (being able to drive around in a car being one of the most annoying).

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    I'm hoping he'll be pulling back a bit for "Munich" scheduled now for Christmas (re: the 1972 terrorist attack during the Olympics).


    Pulling back??? Really? How could that possibly happen?

    tabuno: I agree, I like A.I., and think in many ways it's impressive; but we are somewhat in the minority. The search function still does work, but where the thread is very long, it breaks down.

    I still think that War of the Worlds has some splendid set pieces and these provide visual thrills and chills which could be considered to be entertainment, even aesthetic pleasure of the pop kind Spielberg excells in providing. But yes, you may want to go out and buy popcorn in between, especially during the cellar with Tim section.

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    Eerie Set Design

    The reddish alien landscape was visceral and eerie - an excellent set design.

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    I think Spielberg's dramatic sense of landscape is clearly visible in War of the Worlds. The trouble is, as others have mentioned, that in this movie the content and dialogue are not up to the grand imagery. But that doesn't keep the images from being something to know about, because Spielberg is always in some ways a true master of filmmaking, even when his overall conception is weak.

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    I liked the Ferry sequence best. Kahn's pacing is clearly evident building up the suspence. Working with set pieces like these make a director's job that much easier. The set sells the scene. That was my one true 'entertaining' moment.

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    But I would say the opening sequences in the New Jersey streets are also stunning.

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    cinemabon: "I liked the Ferry sequence best. Kahn's pacing is clearly evident building up the suspence. Working with set pieces like these make a director's job that much easier. The set sells the scene. That was my one true 'entertaining' moment."

    tabuno: Personally, the Ferry sequence didn't hold much interest for me. The Ferry sequence was another example of those scenes that were inserted more for supposed heightened action interest, but as with almost all action movies, this scene was just another of those scenes that I've seen over and over and over again. It also seemed some how artificial, unbelievable to me...the heroic antics of a son trying to save people...we've seen this type of behavior again and again - "Titanic" had some great scenes of desperation, hope, and tragedy. The scene held nothing new for me and I felt manipulated. I was hoping for something more graphic and raw, like perhaps the Saving Private Ryan opening scene of chaos and disaster, panic, and fear. The written stories of Katrina and New Orleans are more horrible and graphic and intense than even the visual, sound of the Ferry sequence. When our heros seem to "luckily" get on board, it's just another one of those amazing count down sequences where the time bomb conveniently gets stopped with one or two seconds left. There just isn't any believability to it. It becomes tiring.

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    Thanks. When you look at it in a comparative basis, then I'm inclined to agree. The ferryboat sequence is nothing compared to the sinking of the Titanic. I was attempting to isolate a specific scene that gave me "entertainment" value.

    The opening scene 'lost it' for me in two ways. While I enjoyed the CGI "people turning to dust" and the later irony when the children ask, "What's with the dust?"; I could not escape the huge continuity errors. All electrical devices wiped out, but then a man pops up shooting with his digital camera. Oops! I had to push away from the table when I discovered the great filet of tuna that looked so good on the outside was raw on the inside (metaphor, I hate it when restaurants do that!). I don't like those surprises in my big budgets films. When the Martian craft were suspended up on spindle-like legs, I laughed out loud in the theater. They looked silly. It robbed me of my "Wow!" moment. Instead, I found myself saying, "What was Steven thinking?"

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    The written stories of Katrina and New Orleans are more horrible and graphic and intense than even the visual, sound of the Ferry sequence.
    I haven't watched much of those, but I would not be surprised. I was thinking that when watching War of the Worlds -- the human suffering aspect is no competition for what actually goes on in various parts of our little planet every day or so. Imagine the stampede in Iraq that killed 700 people in a few minutes, and the thousands dying in horror and squalor and terror in Louisiana. Yes, no movie director could equal that. Nor can he equal the power of natural disasters. Nonetheless Spielberg relatively speaking excels in these two areas and I don't think the disintegrating streets and buildings in the New Jersey sequence or the terrifed crowds in the ferry and field sequences are chopped liver. If you can't manage som suspension of disbelief, you're at the wrong movie when you go to something like this. Nonetheless the conception of the disaster early on -- electrical and mechanical breakdown, yet some stuff still working -- is a bit confused I have to grant. It's just not a great movie. Spielberg has done much better.

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    Suspension of Disbelief and Transporter 2

    Chris Knipp's quote:

    If you can't manage som suspension of disbelief, you're at the wrong movie when you go to something like this.
    I don't know if you are going to even seen Transporter 2, but I would be interested in knowing, if you do, what you would think about suspension of disbelief. While this movie had some great, new martial art sequences, I deliberately tried to maintain my suspension of disbelief while watching what I ended up frustrated by how much disbelief I had to suspend. There are times when the plot or action is so much beyond even what is considered action/thriller special effects induced sensibility that it truly ruins a movie.

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