War of the Worlds

War of the Worlds

Also reviewed by:
Johnny Five
Noah K.

I see this film as somewhat of a companion piece to M Night Shamalangadingdong's brilliant Signs. Both films take the high-concept summer blockbuster fodder of an alien invasion and put a decisively real and human face to it. Instead of the President of the United States of America having aerial dogfights with alien UFOs as in Independence Day, or Will Smith getting jiggy with hoards of humorous alien species in Men In Black, both Signs and War of the Worlds show an attack on our planet almost exclusively from the perspective of the main characters. Here we see America being taken over as the characters themselves stumble upon the chaos and horror, which makes it an unnervingly realistic view of something so…sci-fi.

The first ten minutes feel like nothing but space for some quick characterisations. Okay, Tom Cruise – Ray – is a crap dad (such a shock for a Spielberg film!), divorced from mother of his children – a son who despises him and a daughter he doesn't know – who is obviously concerned about leaving her kids with a guy who has a car engine on his kitchen table and no food in the cupboards. Crap dad. Got it? Good. Let's get to the war.

It may feel forced and stagnant, but in hindsight the start of the film plays out nicely as the ‘calm-before-the-storm', here quite literally, as the aliens announce themselves with a thunderous, windy, lightening-filled sky show, an obviously ominous sign even to someone as clueless as Ray. Curious, he ditches his kids and runs into town, the center of the turbulent activity, and stands around with the rest of the open-jawed locals at a suspicious crater in the ground. This is where the film turns the first alien sci-fi film cliché on its head. The invaders emerge from the earth instead of the skies and these ‘tripods', as retro as them may seem, are a cool departure from the flying discs we are used to seeing. How exactly the aliens have attacked us from within is explained in a clumsy exposition scene later involving a television news crew that just raised more questions – surely someone would have noticed if these things had been buried underground for millions of years – and probably wasn't needed. I like that the alien's motives don't always make sense (why do they combust some people, but capture others?). Their unpredictability just adds to the insanity and fear of the situation.

The film really kicks in when the fractured family flees from their home, trying to stay together as they wander from town to town, refugees in their own country. Spielberg for all his notorious sugar and saccharine pulls no punches showing as much horror coming from humankind in the wake of the attacks as from the aliens themselves. Fear, it seems, leads to selfishness, which leads to violence, which leads to the dark side.

Ray isn't a hero here either. He will do whatever it takes to save himself and his family. It's every man for themselves. He has the only working car on the roads but will plow down anyone that stands in his way. In Signs the family barricaded themselves in their house and tried to brave the attack. They had little idea what was happening in the outside world, both in terms of other countries, and even a few feet outside their own house. In War Of The Worlds the main character Ray (Tom Cruise) and his family may be on the run from the alien forces, herding through towns with a mass of others, but they are still very much alone.

That many action and battle shots are hand-held adds to the realism here and brings back memories of Saving Private Ryan, as the huddled masses wandering the country in the wake of the attacks might remind you of some Schlinder's List scenes. This is just as much a war film as a sci-fi action flick but instead of Nazi's or Middle Eastern terrorists the enemy is literally alien.

This film may be a reaction to 9/11 but Speilberg isn't making any statements, rather just tapping into the global psyche by referencing the culture of fear and confusion that abounded in the wake of that attack. Some shots in the film are seemingly copied directly from news-reel footage we've all seen of New Yorkers escaping from the falling Trade Towers , running for their lives down the streets of Manhattan covered in ash, soot and blood. There's also, more abstractly, a plane wreck that takes place.

There will be those who see these moments as clues to push further looking for greater meaning here, like those who saw the Anakin/Emperor characters in Revenge Of The Sith as a not-so-subtle attack on George W Bush. The attitude of Ray's son that they should be fighting back instead of cowardly fleeing can be read either as foolishly arrogant, or heroically patriotic, perhaps depending on your political stance, and eventually he leaves his family to follow the human armed forces as they futilely try to take on the aliens. Not so gray is Tim Robbins' character, who grants Ray and his daughter asylum hiding in his basement. He too wants to take action against their invaders, and revenge for the deaths of his family even at the risk of putting them all in danger, and it is clear the film portrays him as a crazy and stupidly dangerous man.

There will be those who believe that this is the film's weak spot, and it does indeed feel like its own short story (and very Signs-like, which in turn was probably a reference to the War short story), but it is a well-earned breather that starts innocuously enough then builds to a shocking conclusion. It is not this part of the film that is the problem, but rather that the film doesn't quite feel the same after it. I guess there is only so much roaming the country seeking safety only to find – oh no, the aliens are here too! – that you can see, but still, it is when the war gets more personal for Ray that it all gets a little silly.

There are lapses in directional judgment from Sir Spielberg. In the middle of this doco-realistic footage or refugees wandering from town to town there are some set pieces that stick out and remind you that this is still a blockbuster film event. A five-minute family conversation in the car as they escape the destruction of their town (and the thousands of now homeless people trapped on the interstate) is spiced up with impossible camera work that zooms alongside and then inside and out of the car. Hey, it looks good, and I commend any attempt to spice up exposition scenes, but this and other camera gimmicks feel out of place.

There's also too many narrow escapes for Ray that may get some eyes rolling but in seeing a film about aliens you have to make some effort to suspend your disbelief or you'll turn into of those annoying people that question everything – “How did he fire that many bullets without reloading?”, “He could never pull a chick like that in real life”, “If the TV show 24 is meant to take place in real time then why do we never see Kiefer Sutherland never go to the toilet?” etc, etc.

I hate those people.

Tom Cruise is solid here. He may start with the Cruise grin amped up to 11 but it soon gets wiped off his face as his character finds himself struggling to make the right decisions in the wake of such terror. They try to paint Ray early on as totally selfish and almost unlikable, of course so we see his character grow, learn and mature along the way, but he also functions as the everyman – he is as scared and confused as anyone would be in that situation – and Cruise handles it well. The dude playing his son may have gone to the Hayden Christensen academy of angry-teen-male acting, but it is what was demanded of the role. Dakota Fanning pulls off the remarkable feat of acting like a real little girl instead of the overly precocious smarter-than-the-adults-around-her role she usually plays. I hope she enjoys playing every little-girl film role going round at the moment, because like Hayley Joel Osment, the poor kid isn't going to survive in the business once puberty hits.

The ending is a letdown. I'm not talking about how the aliens were defeated (read the book – it's in there), but the predictability of the safe and happy family reunion. After all, this is Spielberg and we should probably be happy that he at least kept his sickly sweet touches at bay until this point.

Although not as good or creepy as Signs, War of the Worlds is a relief from the usual American summer fare and, minor grumbles aside, gives us a grounded sci-fi film (that not just the uber-nerds can relate to), as Spielberg triumphantly returns to the kind of genre piece that started him on the path to greatness.