Underatted And Compelling

Rating: 8/10 (27 July 2008)

I've never been much of a fan of Spielberg . I know he's the most popular director of all time but I find his films old fashioned and mawkish . In short the idea of Spielberg directing an adaptation of perhaps the greatest science fiction novel ever written and starring Tom Cruise didn't make me do a bee line for the cinema entrance especially when initial feedback was disappointing . In fact I didn't bother with seeing it on DVD either and I only watched it on network TV by chance . However I spent the next two hours being very impressed by the mis en scene and narrative . This could be Spielberg's most underrated work
First thing first though . Many of the people who dislike this movie seem to be confused by the alien arrival . The aliens certainly have not lain dormant in the Earth for thousands of years , this is only speculated upon by a TV journalist . It's similar to the line of dialogue in 28 DAYS LATER about " outbreaks in Paris and New York " leading to a large percentage of its audience believingtherest of the world has been destroyed by the Rage virus . The aliens in fact have newly arrived via " the lightening " and while there is no logical reason for them to have burrowed underground it does allow , quite deliberately , for the director to have a slow and stunning build up of impact aesthetics
It's this impact aesthetic that makes this remake of WOTW such a compelling film . The initial scene of the tripods coming out of the ground and their extermination of the humans via death ray is simply one of the best things Spielberg has done with his work . Later on he does a remarkable understated scene where refugees stop at a rail crossing and a blazing locomotive drives past . It should be pointed out that my criticism of Spielberg's " old fashioned " type of directing isn't to be taken as a criticism within this film and Spielberg is astoundingly effective in the scene where Ray dispatches Ogilvy . It's very similar to the 1930s gangster films where someone is killed just as the camera pans away to the victims shadow as they're shot . Considering this is a Summer blockbuster made for a family audience you can understand why it's necessary to kill a paedophile in an understated manner
There are a couple of problems that should be mentioned . One is that the aliens are rather enigmatic . Well's original novel also has enigmatic invaders from Mars and when you know little about the species invading Planet Earth that makes them even more frightening . Science fiction writers through the decades have occasionally continued he trend , an obvious example being John Wyndham's The Kraken Wakes . However when the aliens do appear you can't help thinking that they're the exact same aliens from INDEPENDENCE DAY . Couldn't someone have come up with something a little bit more interesting ? Say what you like about DOCTOR WHO but always remember that an alien in that show could be anything from a robot to a ten foot condom , not something from a Summer blockbuster ten years previously . I wasn't too impressed with Cruise as Ray but be honest Tom Cruise is such a genuinely nice guy in real life that it's impossible to think of him as a blue collar worker having to kill to survive , and let's be thankful we didn't get Sly , Arnie or Bruce saving us from the aliens . Perhaps the biggest problem is one of subtext . In the original novel the Martians are surrogate Europeans colonizing the third world . In the 1953 movie the Martians are obviously aggressive communists come to destroy capitalist democracy . Here however while there's parallels with the invasion of Iraq there's little to mull over except for a throwaway line that " occupations always fail "
This is one of the few Summer blockbusters from recent years that while having all the basic ingredients like star power and explosions is very much more the sum of its parts . Much of this may be due to 9/11 and its aftermath . It would be churlish to have American cities and their inhabitants reduced to dust while a character cracks one liners and the makers know this . Hence we have a film that despite a few obvious flaws is serious , downbeat but most of all compelling . I sincerely hope this will in time become considered as one of Steven Spielberg's masterworks