Tom can run

Rating: 9/10 (30 June 2005)

War of the Worlds I debated whether skipping this for a time just because it was a remake of an old classic I had seen and remakes rarely live up to, let alone surpass the originals. For those others not old enough to recall, the original was made in 1953 and starred Gene Barry, later to go on to greater fame as the star of TV's western series "Bat Masterson (1958)" and "Burke's Law (1963)". But boredom and a night wanting to escape reality won out, so I went on opening night, something I almost never do because of the crowds. As it was the theater was sold out all but the last showing, so guess how late I stayed up on a work night? Anyway... I digress... I was prepared to be disappointed.
Let's address the obvious first. Well, the script didn't exactly follow the book (which I read as a young boy along with the rest of Well's works) but it's likely better given the medium here. The screenplay did a rather great job of updating the old classic's story line to something that at least seemed plausible, given the theme. For that bit of slight-of-keyboard one must give thanks to Josh Friedman, who "consulted on the recently enjoyable "Sahara" but seems to have few other credits to boast of. His list should rightfully grow after this effort, all masterfully photographed by the stunningly talented cinematographer Janusz Kaminski (another Oscar for him perhaps?).
After the story, to build a good, never mind great, Sci Fi piece, we must have adequate sets, art direction and costuming. These were all top notch and also fit the film quite well. Some of the "looks" of the sets here are Oscar worthy in scale, scope and ambition so we should hear more in the future about this effort.
Next, one must mention the efforts of the director, the legendary Steven Spielberg. I think he elicited perhaps the best performance to date from Tom Cruise and excellent performances from Tim Robbins and the young Ms. Dakota Fanning. Their performances are somewhat limited by the type of story it is, but they all do extremely well in making it a great movie. Watch for Gene Barry, the star of the original film, making a cameo appearance near the end of the film (apparently Tom Cruise's character's ex-father-in-law). The one thing that is hard to do is introduce anything in this kind of a story, where all of humanity is so completely devastated by the invaders. The character Cruise plays would be very difficult for any actor as they made him a pretty unsympathetic blue collar/red-neck type of a shiftless ruffian; a failed ex-husband and what appears a joke as a father. Still, with all of that going against him, Cruise manages to make us root for his character. In the end I think they went a bit overboard in trying to make him look like just an ordinary guy who still manages to somehow survive the unthinkable against all the odds. The nuances in his performance will likely be missed or misunderstood by many, especially by his leagues of fluttering femme fans.
Last, but certainly not least in this genre, are the special effects. Here, all the stops are pulled and there are some great effects that contribute to the finished product in the best possible way. Sitting in the audience of a packed theater I could feel the audience react en-mass to many of them.
All-in-all, the producers delivered what is likely better than the original, thoroughly entertaining and definitely worth the price of admission. It is classic Science Fiction in it's rawest manifestation so it may not be favorite of general movie goers, but as I filed out of the theater with the pressing throng (I seemed to be one of the VERY few people in the theater OVER the age of 20) I heard many patrons speak positively of it. I can recommend it, especially to Sci Fi fans.