Another Sorry Spielberg Saga

Rating: 5/10 (20 June 2007)

The Steven Spielberg film adaptation of H. G. Wells' immortal 1898 novel "War of the Worlds" would make the British author spin in his grave. Ostensibly, this predictable but gritty $135-million, special effects laden, aliens-attack-Earth epic depicts humanity run amok, casting superstar Tom Cruise as a blue-collar worker who flees urban New Jersey with his two children, a rebellious teenage son and a 'tweener daughter, after marauding extra-terrestrials launch a wholesale slaughter of humanity. The best thing about this "War of the Worlds" is that Spielberg scraps the boomerang-shaped Martian vessels with ominous green lights from an earlier "War of the Worlds" movie for Wells' own alien craft: lumbering, 100-foot tall aerial war machines that emit scorching heat rays and sometimes deploy three legs to tromp the planet when they aren't flying above it. Actually, the spaceships in Spielberg's movie look more like giant squid and their unearthly occupants resemble Japanese-style Kabuki-theater actors with their wedge-shaped heads. Happily, Spielberg shows these death machines early and often in an otherwise anemic 116 minute sci-fier that boasts no real hero. Cruise maims an alien at one point, but the "Top Gun" star spends most of his time fighting his fellow man in what amounts to a 'Bore of the Worlds' rather than a "War of the Worlds." Nowhere near as glossy, melodramatic or just plain downright exciting as director Roland Emmerich's "Independence Day," "War of the Worlds" strives lamely for realism when it should have focused on hair-raising fun. Overexposed photography designed to conceal second-rate CGI; unconvincing performances, especially by Cruise; and child actress Dakota Fanning's incessant screaming (wear ear-plugs) sabotage this saga that features few thrills and chills. Like the menacing mechanized monsters it dispatches from another world to devastate America, the film buckles under the hulk of its own ambitions and fails in its quasi-fidelity to the novel and to entertain. Despite several glaring changes to Wells' classic, such as relocating this oft-told tale to 21st century America, converting the hero into a divorced family man, and refusing to identify the aliens as Martians, Spielberg and his scenarists have retained more of the novel and its dialogue than director Bryon Haskin and scenarist Barre Lyndon did in George Pal's ground-breaking, Cold War-themed, 1953 version, a film indebted more to Orson Welles' benchmark 1938 radio version of the Wells' story. Nevertheless, people who love homages to other movies will appreciate the cameos that Gene Barry and Ann Robinson, hero and heroine in the only previous theatrical incarnation of Wells' novel, make near the end of the action.
"War of the Worlds" opens with dysfunctional dock worker Ray Ferrier (Tom Cruise) moving semi-trailers by means of a giant crane, a task he performs with greater skill than anybody else. After he refuses to violate union rules by working overtime for his boss who desperately needs his expertise to get the job done fast, Ferrier careens home in his convertible sports car. Awaiting his late arrival from work are his pregnant ex-wife, Mary Ann (Miranda Otto of the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy) and her wealthy hubby Tim (David Alan Basche of "Full Frontal"), so Ray can take custody of his troublesome son Robbie (Justin Chatwin of "Taking Lives") and daughter Rachel (scene-stealing Dakota Fanning of "Hide and Seek") for the weekend while Mary Ann and Tim visit her parents in Boston. No sooner have Mary Ann and Time left than strange things happen. Fiery lightning bolts strike the city and short-circuit all electrical appliances and motor vehicles just as a nuclear denotation would damage all electronic systems. Initially, Ray thinks that it is just a storm, until he joins a crowd on the street. In shocked disbelief, Ray and countless others watch as an asphalt intersection cracks up and a canopied metallic giant bursts from the ground. These intimidating Goliath-like machines emit murderous rays that turn humans into dust and send their apparel swirling in the breeze. Thinking quickly, Ray collects Robbie and Rachel, steals a repaired station-wagon from his friend's garage, and hits the road. Meanwhile, the highways stand cluttered with broken-down cars and trucks, and Ray refuses to stop for anybody. Robbie hates Ray for tucking his tail between his legs and running. Robbie wants a piece of the action and vows to join the fight against the extra-terrestrials. Eventually, a chaotic crowd halts Ray and family and an armed bystander hijacks Ray's mini-van. During their journey to Boston, Ray and company encounter a lunatic survivalist Harlan Ogilvy (Oscar-winner Tim Robbins of "Mystic River") who wants to dig a vast network of tunnels to surprise and defeat the aliens.
Spielberg and company have done such an extensive job of updating the Wells' book, you'd think that he would add some explanation about the villainous aliens, but these predators remain mysterious. The staple of movies like "War of the Worlds" is the scientist-as-protagonist who tries to explain the phenomenon that humanity and he are up against. No such scientist figures exist to describe, explain, or clarify the monsters, so the surprise ending seems like more than a cop-out than a revelation, even though Spielberg took it from the text. Woe unto those who plan to see "War of the Worlds," because it feels like a half-baked fire-drill rather than a full-blown alien invasion.