A real disappointment from Spielberg...

Rating: 3/10 (3 January 2006)

"War of the Worlds" has some brilliant sequences, and the long middle section of the film is alternately thrilling, suspenseful and even funny. But the beginning drags and the end is completely ludicrous, a concession to test audiences and an exercise in defeat for true fans of science fiction. Tom Cruise plays a character very much like...Tom Cruise, an abrasive, hyperactive man who behaves like a child. Charged with guarding his own children in the midst of an alien invasion, Cruise's character observes the goings-on from what is strictly an Everyman's point-of-view, and it was interesting to see a disaster film from this perspective. Cruise's character is no governmental leader or military figure; he does not pilot a ship into the belly of the alien beast, nor does he do anything of great significance during the movie apart from thinking quickly and acting decisively to save his family. The film takes a rather dim (and highly realistic) view of humanity as it shows people behaving in the worst way out of a sense of panic and impending doom. The sequence in which Cruise's character and his family is carjacked in the midst of a surging crowd is terrifying, more disturbing in its way than any sequence involving the alien invaders.
This film was shot on a film stock that echoes the grainy realism of a digital handy-cam. This has a twofold benefit: first, it helps blend the CGI aliens and their machines better into the "real" landscape around them. This film is virtually free of awkward green-screen edges and the effects look much more realistic than they do in similar films with a lot of computer-animated creatures. Secondly, the film's grainy stock echoes the footage captured during 9/11, and I think it was Spielberg's intent for that great tragedy to infiltrate this film so completely. Terrorist attacks are feared more than the aliens in the film, and sequences involving mass panic, jet crashes and the terror of ordinary life suddenly upended all invoke the events of September 11th. Moreover, the aliens shoot rays which incinerate their victims, transforming them into dust. As Cruise runs to escape the first alien onslaught, he becomes covered in ash and, upon arriving back at home, looks exactly like those who made it out of Ground Zero in New York. It serves as an interesting parable and helps make this update of H.G. Wells' classic sci-fiction story relevant to life in 2005.
As I said earlier, this film is flawed by a completely unnecessary ending. The middle sections of this film were executed with great technical mastery and interesting storytelling choices, but all that collapses during the final five minutes with an ending that feels so tacked-on, so unbelievable and shallow that it serves only to betray the audience in an effort to make sure everyone leaves the theater in a good mood. This is a flawed film, and it is very far from Spielberg's best.