The end of the Worlds

Rating: 4/10 (22 July 2005)

Three things particularly puzzled me about *War of the Worlds*.
One is the strange chronology of events. As the film opens, the first inkling of anything amiss are a few reports on the news of power outages in Ukraine. When the tripod emerges in New Jersey, there is no reason for us to think that any have yet struck elsewhere. And yet within just a few hours, we hear people talking about battles around the world as if they have been going on for weeks: and this when all sources of communication are supposedly down.
The second puzzle is what the purpose of Tim Robbins is. This is a larger philosophical issue, not a casting query.
The third is how Spielberg and the scriptwriters ever thought they could get away with the ending. Why does the boy need to survive when all plot logic dictates that he should be dead or missing? It shows such total contempt for the audience that I'm staggered Spielberg ever let it cross his mind, let alone film it and put it in the final cut.