A good adrenaline rush, if nothing else

Rating: 7/10 (25 July 2005)

The past week, I've read in many places (not even sure where at this point) negative opinions on this film focusing on unimportant details, like whether the force fields the aliens use were incorrectly off or on at crucial moments. Or that they're tired of Morgan Freeman's voice as God (he's not God; he speaks of God and could just be a survivor recalling this event years later; and now we're discussing this detail and missing the big picture). I get the feeling some viewers cheat themselves of a strong movie experience by looking for stuff like this throughout a film. The feeling Spielberg conveys in the first few minutes is that this really is just another typical day, as seen from the perspective of Tom Cruise's character and his kids (where it will remain for the entire film). There's nothing ominous in the air (even the TV blips of strange weather project nothing bad). It's a day like last week and it will end as just another day. There's that sameness to everything which all of the audience can relate to. Day after day, week after week, even year after year - nothing to really get excited about.
When it shifts, it's a jolt. It starts with that weird lightning, pauses for a few minutes to build more tension, and then escalates to Hell on Earth within a few more. If one were to describe one of those alien tripod machines moving past a couple of blocks away, blasting with it's death beam, it would probably elicit a laugh from listeners, but there's nothing funny about how it's depicted, to Spielberg's credit; he'd learned his craft in this regard by the time of Saving Private Ryan's beach scene. When Cruise peers around the corner, a small, almost mouse-like figure, a lucky survivor of the initial onslaught, all you feel is his fear, his shock, his helplessness. The tripods even produce a bizarre musical sound, a deadly counterpoint to the notes we heard in "Close Encounters" produced by Spielberg's friendly aliens; here, the aliens are sounding the death-knell of the human race. I must confess I'm not sure this intensity will come across so well on a small TV screen; I saw this in a theater and they turn up the sound so high, a person walking to his car across the screen is intense.
So you're with Cruise and his kids the rest of the film; all your neighbors are dead; your other relatives in other cities? Maybe. You don't know. Any minute now, you may be joining the hundreds dead. No, must be thousands. Millions? No, it's too insane, too dreadful! The first act, ending with Cruise walking back to his house, numb and covered in the dust of people, and then managing to escape in the only working vehicle, is the best sequence; Spielberg can't really top it. But, the next few scenes all come pretty close in a series of heart-stoppers. The one extended scene where Spielberg, Cruise, the writer and all the participants were at a loss was being holed up with Tim Robbins; it just didn't work and slowed the picture down. And the ending? The undoing of the aliens followed along the same lines of the original climax of H.G.Wells' novel and the '53 film version. The filmmakers simply couldn't find a way to trump Wells (one of the greatest science fiction writers of all time) and why should they? The alternative is the aliens win, mankind is dead - that's another film (here, we stop at about a billion dead). But, I didn't agree with Spielberg's reverting to his usual safety net and letting the audience off the hook by miraculously saving the son (ok, there's always a chance he could have survived, but this was a set-up). This was a war, perhaps the most terrible war, and people don't just pop up without a scratch after something like this, unless it's a, well, a Spielberg-type movie. Spielberg, Spielberg, even when you got it - for 90% of the film - you lose it in the end. Now let's all hug each other and wish away any more possible alien attacks. Sigh.