HG Wells is too grown up for Spielberg and many of his hardcore fans

Rating: 4/10 (30 June 2005)

HG Wells was one brilliant mind. He could take complex scientific and philosophical themes and illustrate them with interesting innovative story lines. Michael Crichton wishes he was 1/4th of the SF writer that Wells was.
War of the Worlds explored the themes of colonialism, evolution, social darwinism, human arrogance, and survival of the fittest. The metaphor of an alien invasion and its aftermath perfectly captured the themes. But to top it off he came up with a true zinger of an ending. What if the "fittest" species turned out to be the most simple? This is called irony-and it's something that Spielberg is not known for. And his traditional fan base wouldn't appreciate it even if he could do it right.
An earlier poster said how Spielberg lost his way after he made Schindler's List. But I would say the trouble started earlier--around E.T..
WotW has some of the same problems that plagued the first Jurassic Park, which is not a good movie if you get passed the wow factor of the ground-breaking cgi. The characters are flat, and the plot has no real conclusion.
You have a spectacular idea--people trapped in a park full of rampaging dinosaurs--but the director decides to focus on a man who hates children and how he comes to love them(a concept completely abandoned for JP3 where we discover Alan Grant's life was pretty much ruined by the first movie's events). Here we have an invasion of Earth--and Spielberg once again thinks its more important to tell a "human" story. In both cases, you have a director who has the money to do anything he wants--but he does it cheap.
But JP was well received while WotW is getting savaged. One reason is that CGI technology was new and impressive in 93, now it is common place, and there is very little that's new under the sun. The audience gets bored quick if you let it. Second, is that John Williams score was amped up for JP so the audience would be manipulated into reacting, while in WotW, it is much more subtle. Third is that JP wasn't really a dark movie despite a very dark subject matter(genetic engineering, vivisection). Fourth, is that he gave JP a spectacular CG though completely irrational ending(how exactly does a T-rex sneak up on super smart raptors without making a sound?) while in WotW he does the opposite, and fifth, as stated before, is that Spielberg seems less interested in summer popcorn genre films after doing Schindler's List and it shows in his direction.
His last real attempt was the Lost World--which I think, despite its flaws was one of his least forced movies in decades. It also had irony(four examples: cute child gets menaced by cute creatures she befriends--unheard of in a post E.T. Spielberg film, Eddie does heroic act to save friends and gets horribly killed for it--unheard of in a post Jaws Spielberg film until Saving Private Ryan, paleontologist allows his fear of snakes to get himself killed by t-rex, and the baby t-rex in danger for most of movie gets to kill the villain.).
Everything after LW was either a non genre film or based on the work of a serious filmmaker or writer(Kubrick, Dick). With WotW, it seems Spielberg couldn't decide whether he was doing Wells the serious writer, Welles the radio broadcaster, or Pal the 50s popcorn filmmaker(though one who took all his genre pictures seriously).
I just wonder if Spielberg only did WotW because he thought he could capture the general audience again like he used to--especially after E.T.'s re-release flopped at the box office(and to think that for ten years it was the all time top box office champ).
Or maybe he suffers from the same problem that Lucas has--being able to do anything but being surrounded by people who don't give him honest criticism.