War of the Worlds

Now what to make of Steven Spielberg's re-imagining of H.G. Wells's War of the Worlds, a spoiler-packed review.

First, expectations. I was preparing to see what could be another summer blockbuster hit from blue-chip director, Steven Spielberg, who directed some of my all-time favorite movies such as Minority Report, E.T., and Raiders of the Lost Ark. Then again, he has disappointed me in the past in movies such as A.I. which had its moments, but that's about it. Tom Cruise is fairly ok as an actor but one of my friends insists that he WILL NEVER win an Oscar, and I agree. Dakota Fanning is destined to be one of the best young actresses in Hollywood, and will just keep getting better and better. There are various miscellaneous actors and actresses in the movie like Miranda Otto who we remember from such films as The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, and Tim "Mr. Susan Sarandon" Robbins.

Digression: With all the special audio/video effects, this movie is best experienced in THX. Pay P160.00 in Greenbelt or build a home theater system.

What I already know about the movie

I know there was a 50s movie with a token love interest. I know that the movie is based on the novel (duh!), and made really famous by the radio play delivered by Orson Welles which caused a panic in 1938. I haven't read the book, but I have seen the feature on Discovery Channel's Great Books show, narrated by Donald Sutherland, so I know more or less what happens. Maybe it's also important to note that H.G. Well's wrote this as a response to imperialism and expansionism that was prevalent at the time. (The original setting was 19th century London)

A quick synopsis

It started out pretty normal enough subtly giving us a clue on what the ending might be, with voice-over by Morgan Freeman. Then we are introduced to Ray (Tom Cruise) and the family. His ex-wife (Miranda Otto) drops off their kids in his place for a few days so that she and her new husband (I think) can go to Boston. Weird lightning storms and blackouts all over the world eventually hit the area. Suddenly, three-legged machines ("tripods") appear from below the ground, pulls out vaporizer guns and goes on a shooting spree. All the humans they hit are instantly vaporized, leaving only their flailing clothes, a cool effect.

For most of the movie, a lot of driving and running, mostly because the characters always get to where they are supposed to go, without a lot of trouble. Yeah, there's always a clear path in that gridlocked highway. Anyway, they're supposed to go to Boston, where the ex-wife and her family are supposed to be. More running.

They are caught near the frontlines and see the futile attack of the U.S. Army. It seems the tripods have some kind of force-field.

The family eventually meet up with this guy who's tired of running (Tim Robbins) and intends to fight back with his sophisticated arsenal of shotguns and axes. The guy goes a bit insane, so ol' Ray has to shut him up for good.

Walking this time. They reach Boston. The weird veins that the aliens spread to the ground that acts like a supply line start to dry up. They get word that the machines just stopped working.

In the end, the aliens seem to run out of gas. Their million-year invasion plan foiled. We win by default. Ray sees the ex-wife and her family, all alive, the row houses in Boston, undamaged. Everybody's happy.

Hokay.

Now first of all, these aliens should be inducted into the Hall of Fame Idiot Alien Invaders of the Earth. It was an invasion plan, a million years or so in the making. The Borg Collective from Star Trek: First Contact turned a desperate escape plan into a well-crafted and executed invasion/assimilation plan in less than 5 minutes. Ok, that was cheating, they knew how to time travel.

These aliens, if they're at all Martians, are down there with the all-time shameful excuses for extraterrestrial intelligent life such as The Aliens of Independence Day, who got infected by a Mac-compatible computer virus sent by a 50-year old space ship with no security clearance or access codes piloted by humans carrying what looks like a crude nuclear device. Also in the list are the alien invaders from the movie Signs, whose non-water resistant species decided it best to invade a planet with a surface consisting of 3/4 water. Also in there are the fun-loving Martians from Mars Attacks!, but at least that was intentionally moronic.

I guess that alone turned me off a bit. But it gets an A+ for being a 50s movie.

The other thing is the freak of an ending. The fact that the aliens just dropped dead for no apparent reason (at least to the characters in the movie) is not really a surprise to me since I've heard of the story, as I said, from the Discovery Channel feature. In fact, it would surprise me even more if they fought back and won it. I'm sure all the H.G. Wells faithful can appreciate how the movie adapted the "original ending" into the movie. What I really didn't like however is that everything is all happy in the end. I mean everything. The ex-wife and her family didn't even try to escape Boston (maybe there's something in Boston). I guess it was one of the last cities the aliens tried to invade. I was thinking maybe they could at least appear to be battered and bruised or at least somebody in the main cast should have died (like that brother who improbably survived the frontline crossfire). Then at least, the message could still be "war is hell." But I guess the message was "ride it out and hope for the best."

Anyway the Rotten Tomatoes Critics' Tomatometer is at 72% as of the time of this writing, which means that a lot of critics appreciated the movie. So I may yet be wrong about this. Maybe it needs a second viewing. But right now, it feels like an A.I.-caliber movie.