War of the Worlds

Rating: 7/10 (22 May 2006)

With War Of The Worlds, Steven Spielberg shows us what he has learnt from over 30 years of film-making. The film has all his best moments rolled into one package  it has the brutality of Saving Private Ryan (1998), the intensity of Jaws (1975), and the very best of effects he has been involved in. But it does have a problem and that, strangely enough, stems not from the director but from his source material.
Tom Cruise plays Ray Ferrier, a dock worker who has custody of his children for the weekend (screaming youngster and rebellious teen, naturally). He's not the world's best dad, but fortunately his parental inadequacy is put on the bench when aliens come and invade, wanting to both destroy and harvest human beings. And this is some invasion  for a good half hour the audience is subjected to an invasion of such ferocity that comparisons to Saving Private Ryan (1998) will come up, and be totally valid. In an interesting little twist from the H.G.Wells book, these aliens have been here all along, buried under the earth waiting to be reactivated. When they come up out of the ground, they tear apart cities like paper, and use their death rays to exterminate humans with such speed and viciousness, that the audience really forgets to breathe for the entire sequence; it really is astonishing.
Then things go in a different direction  we move from big destruction to an intimate, almost in the realms of a horror film, sequence. Our heroes are in a basement with Harlan Ogilvy (Robbins), and the aliens come into their hiding place. A Martian arm (though curiously we are never actually told that they are Martian) comes down to search the basement, with the survivors having to move around to stay out of its sight. It is reminiscent of the kitchen scene from Jurassic Park (1993), and is all the better for it. Mixed in here is the conflict between Ray and Ogilvy; Ray wants to hide, Ogilvy wants to fight. There is an immensely tense scene where Ray and Ogilvy are fighting over a shotgun, whilst trying to stay as quiet as possible, so the Martians in the next room don't hear them. It gives the film real power over the audience, as we are kept guessing all the way.
H.G.Wells' book has been updated for the 21st century and, on the whole, this is a good idea. It gives us some perspective and modern relevance  the first thing that Ray's children ask about the attacks is if they are terrorists  and with the aliens' shields, the whole situation seems utterly helpless. We see the military swept aside so easily, their counter-attacks ineffective. We see a crowd of people fighting Ray over the one remaining working car. Spielberg also gets some great shots in there too  highlights include a ferry being tipped over in the Hudson river, and a train with all its carriages on fire speeding over a level crossing. It shows Spielberg's rarely seen but strong potential for darkness.
The difference between War Of The Worlds and many other disaster films is that here we don't see any authority  no presidential reactions and such like. This is very much the tale of one family's survival and the invasion from their point of view. Ray is not a hero, and the only time he is forced into a situation when he has to become one is when he is trying to protect his daughter; it is sheer desperation that drives him. Cruise does an excellent job of portraying Ray as a hopeless father, but also powerless to stop events that are shattering their lives  he simply does not know what to do; so he runs with the crowds. Dakota Fanning is likewise excellent as his daughter Rachael, although she spends most of the film screaming. There is not much time to really get to know the characters though, which is a shame as it makes the Ferrier family seem rather distant, as if the writer thought "this could be anyone". Maybe that was the point, but it distances the audience somewhat. The Martians are well done, keeping their tripods from the book (rather than ships like the 1953 film version) but updating them to look more technological and menacing. Arguments about the impracticality of tripods are pointless  no one really cares as the film is too involving to spend time thinking about such things.
The problem comes at the end. Spielberg has never been that great at endings recently, but this ending is not all his fault. He sticks to the ending from the book, which is something that even Wells enthusiasts have never been too pleased with. Almost as soon as the attack comes, it is over. It is hard to believe the cause of the Martian demise, but Spielberg would have had little choice but to keep the ending if he wanted to keep the film as War Of The Worlds and not just any old invasion film. At just under the two hour mark, the film keeps you gripped all the way through, with some stunning effects, edge-of-your-seat tension and good old fashioned explosions. This is Steven Spielberg's 'greatest hits' collection, and it all comes together extremely well.
Rated: 8/10
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