Spielberg's disaster movie, with aliens

Rating: 6/10 (3 February 2007)

It had to happen eventually. After all the nice misunderstood aliens with their musical communication and their glowing fingers, Spielberg had to snap. And snap he did. With War of the Worlds, Spielberg introduced his next alien--the ones that kill indiscriminately with multicolored ray-guns and tentacles and want to, as Brain would say, "...take over the world." I think Spielberg is in a bit of a slump. He's been making decent movies, but it seems like his originality and storytelling has been getting increasingly weaker. I mean, I don't expect him to turn out complete garbage, but he's not quite at the level where he used to be. War of the Worlds is an example of this. The story to War of the Worlds is highly episodic and seemingly disjointed. In fact, there isn't a great deal of character development, but we just follow one family as it survives an annihilation. From one episode of escaping the big baddies to another.
I think there is some small amount of commentary about the fallen nature of humanity, but the movie, though seemingly taken from the original source (this is hearsay), also seems to miss out on some of the contextuality of the original. The book was written in the late 19th century admist colonialism, the roots of the industrial revolution and so forth. Whereas Spielberg did a passing job addressing matters of science fiction and social issues in Minority Report, he misses the boat with War of the Worlds.
When the movie ends, you're sort of left with a "that's it?" experience--because there doesn't seem to be any serious underlying theme to the film. Even the sense of loss that the film tries to permeate early on is eradicated by the film's relatively too-happy ending.
But the special effects are mostly impressive, the destruction is frightening enough that there were people in there theater that were becoming obviously agitated and I can't say that the direction and editing were particularly lacking. The acting by Tom Cruise was, well, it looked like it was Tom Cruise in a alien invasion movie. The children were a bit more believable and the rest of the characters are side notes, although Tim Robbins makes an impression, although not necessarily for the better.
Oh yeah, the film also opens with Morgan Freeman, doing a voice-over. Nowhere in the movie do we see Morgan Freeman. He's just a voice that's telling us a story. And the voice-over bookending to the story is a cheap way of not having to show a story--it just tells it. There are also a whole lot of inconsistencies in the movie, especially revolving around the electro-magnetic pulse story-element, but that's a side-note that techies and science fiction nerds will notice.
In the end, it's a watchable experience, but it won't leave you satisfied--although it will disturb or entertain some viewers enough that it will be "good enough" movie going experience. Way below greatness, but better than average. I can't recommend it, but if you want to watch an alien invasion movie, this is better than Independence Day. In terms of science fiction--this is not good science fiction, even Arnold the Gubernator in the Terminator movies, is superior--those at least dealt with themes of fate and humanity's self-destruction.
This is essentially a disaster movie with aliens. Like many disaster movies, it fails to address the people and focuses too much on the disaster. And so disaster movies become disasters.
Let's hope Spielberg finds whatever spark in him that caused him to make his better movies. Auto-pilot doesn't suit him. 6/10.