Great nostalgic entertainment

Rating: 9/10 (5 July 2005)

My whole family went to see Spielberg's "War of the Worlds" this past weekend, and the two big hopes I had for the flick were amply met. I first saw the 1953 version in the summer of 1953 at the age of eight--in other words, at generally the same time that Spielberg himself (we are coevals) no doubt was first impressed by the 1953 George Pal version. I have since then seen the '53 version several times, and I have read the Wells novel close enough to have taught it several times in a science fiction class.
My first hope was that Spielberg would communicate the same sense of nostalgia that runs through all his action flicks. The cameo appearance of Gene Barry and Ann Robinson (the original leads in the 1953 version) was like icing on the cake--and a huge wink from Spielberg to communicate his real motivation.
My second hope was that the flick would primarily be an entertainment, with any BIG STATEMENTS strictly subsumed to the plot dynamics. The inconsistencies noted by other reviewers seem to me trivial and without dramatic consequence. This movie, like the earlier version and the original novel, is primarily a mood piece, and Spielberg beautifully captures the sense of foreboding and attendant suspense that belong to the original conception--so that Spielberg's version is deeply resonant to the wellspring of his own creative energies. In other words, this film communicates the childlike wonder at the heart of what we call "classics." That kind of wonder is possible when the lead character is a vaguely defined Everyman (as in the 1898 novel) or a research scientist (as in the 1953 film version) or a vagrant dad (as in Spielberg's version). The choice of character may communicate something about the era in which the novel was written or the film produced, but in no way distracts from the mood at the heart of the conception.
Even the apparently more serious inconsistencies (okay, the invaders are ethically and religiously challenged mental giants, but is it plausible, for example, that a race of creatures so technically advanced in physics and engineering could be so abysmally ignorant of microbiology?)--even the fairly serious inconsistencies easily dissolve in the willing suspension of disbelief effected by Spielberg's faithfully recollected childhood wonder.
At age 60 I left the movie house with the same agreeable sense of dazzlement that I can recall feeling at age eight. Spielberg's version is, of course, quite a bit more technically sophisticated than George Pal's 1953 version, but it has the same magic connection to that wellspring of foreboding wonder. If you care for that kind of connection, you'll love "War of the Worlds."