Visually stunning at least

Rating: 6/10 (31 July 2008)

War of the Worlds is a pretty engaging film, when you look at it on a fairly superficial level. With explosions, smashes, alien showdowns, and bombings a-plenty, this film doesn't disappoint in the action stakes. It's not very 'talky-talky' which is a bonus. There's nothing worse than sitting through half an hour of intellectual brow beating when you'd sooner be watching stuff getting blown up. The plot is as follows. Dead beat dad Ray (played by alien smoocher Tom Cruise, oh the irony!) gets lumbered with his kids on the one day aliens decide to man (or should that be 'alien'?) their high-tech, killer tripods and start vapourising everyone in sight. It's up to Ray to save his kids, and the planet, apparently. Mind you, as it turns out, the planet is pretty good at saving itself. In true Spielberg style, this film offers up a lot of excitement, family orientated mishaps and some truly stunning visuals. The visuals are without doubt the best part of this movie. The Tripods are a joy to behold. Fashioned like enormous walking hoods with a single, giant 'eye' they are pretty darn scary. The sequence when they emerge from beneath the ground is incredible. Buildings go flying, people run in desperation, bits of the ground get flung up...it's all explosive stuff, and if there had been more of this action on offer I would generously raise my score a little higher. Perhaps even a nine. Sadly though, the stunning CGI is not enough to save this movie completely, despite an utterly chilling little sequence which has left me stunned the few times I've watched this film. It's the part where Ray and his kids, along with a vast crowd go to cross the Hudson river late at night. As they wait for the ferry, they turn to the horizon and there, lit up, glaring down on them like a massive eye, is one of the tripods letting out that creepy siren sound. This scene really gives the impression of how helpless the humans are in the face of this terrible threat, and it is very moving. This film though would have been a whole lot better if you cared for the characters. Ray is nothing more than a deadbeat Dad. Sure, he rises to the challenge eventually but you don't really care. Mind you, with kids like his no wonder he's indifferent. With brats like Robbie and Rachel, played by some nobody and Dakota Fanning respectively, you would be entitled to not give a monkey's uncle. Robbie is a selfish, one dimensional emo-kid with, as Hank Hill would put it, 'an enlarged "rage at father" spectrum in the brain'. Poor old Ray just can't do anything right which evidently explains why My-Chemical-Robbie keeps throwing himself into one dangerous situation after another. Put it this way. Fallout Boy would sooner run towards a FLAMING WAR-ZONE filled with FLAMING TANKS, HELICOPTERS and TRIPODS ON FULL VAPOURISATION-MODE than be anywhere near his Dad. With all that bombing going on you could say he's a real Fallout Boy! *chuckle*. Moving on, don't get me started on Rachel. An obnoxious, well-heeled and precocious brat of monstrous proportions, she suffers allergies, panic attacks and lumbago along with numerous other problems. One wonders whether the film is commenting unfavourably on this type of middle-class horror, who trade on their various 'New Age' ailments and, apparently, make life insufferable for everyone else within a ten-mile radius. Rachel has two modes - firstly, hysterical screaming, which despite her tender years still makes her about as appealing and sympathetic as the girl from the Exorcist. Call me old fashioned but I couldn't help feeling that, rather than give her all that 'safe area' cobblers that Ray 'n' Robbie offer in the film, she received a sound spanking and told to shut up. Seriously, I'm not just being cruel. The interminable screaming was horrific. The second mode is zombie mode, where the little angel stares solemnly into space after being traumatised by stuff, you know the usual - rivers of floating bodies, being captured by aliens with vampiristic tendencies. This is bearable as at least she's quiet. In terms of basic plot-detail, the movie at least stayed faithful to a few elements of the book - the machines are pretty much as Wells described them, and the ghastly purpose of the invasion is the same - the aliens merrily drain human blood for their own sustenance and spread their vile red weed with cheerful abandon. The film's straying from the book in terms of time scale however makes no sense. Wells has the aliens coming to earth on a comet, setting up their machines in the ensuing crater and carrying out their invasion from this point. This film has the tripods buried under ground, presumably for thousands of years. This seems a little strange if you think about it. Why wait thousands if not millions of years to invade? If they were waiting for humans to evolve before invading then...huh? Are these creatures clairvoyant as well as being technologically advanced? And speaking of technology, if you're going to leave an invasion that long, wouldn't you be using inferior machines, presuming the aliens have evolved technology-wise as we have? That's a bit like us invading another planet armed with clubs and spiky sticks while being dragged around by waggon train. Seems a bit erroneous to me but hey. Watch this movie for its great effects and cool action sequences. Just don't be surprised if you end up rooting for the aliens a little bit. Boring Ray, My-Chemical-Robbie and Screamin' Rachel are hardly the most endearing characters you're likely to meet.