Spielberg; an A-List director...

Rating: 6/10 (18 July 2005)

They are going to make money with the movie, and there will no problems for that. Steven Spielberg is a director that knows how to handle any material and take the best out of it. He has worked in films of all types with extremely good results. People said before that he was an A-List director making B-Movies. "Jaes" "Jurassic Park", "Close Encounters of the Third Kind"; all of them important productions where Spielberg use his techniques at their best, which are not just the cameras' movement, but a screen plagued of incredible effects. It doesn't bother with him, because he even does it in romantic movies; but he does it brilliantly.
Today he does it again, with a super production that could be as excellent as it could be bad. While I think it is regular, others could say the opposite, because Spielberg surprised with that super star Tom Cruise is in the cultured "Minority Report". Now with a lot of production, in what looks more like fun than like a serious cinematographic commitment, the effects overcome the story in the two adventurers' new project; "War of the Worlds".
I didn't read H.G Wells' recognized novel, a fact that could have helped my perception of the film, too much typical Hollywood which I though Spielberg was out of. I remember the fantasy movies he did, with all his machinery, in which he got to balance it with a personal story, convincing and close to reality that moved us like "E.T". When I see an American family with a separated marriage, a father that expects his sons' love (one older boy and another younger girl) and a sudden extraterrestrial invasion. I was lucky the music here was managed by a pro like John Williams who achieved one of the best scores I've heard so far this year. Adequate and touching, his notes are between the film's few high points.
That the trailer reveals almost the film's first hour doesn't change anything; the camera was focusing in anyone else than Tom Cruise and the thunders in the sky didn't generate adrenalin. There's a lot of noise, but the script written by one of the best reduces to phrases as "humans don't live nor die in vain", which besides being in the book, sound stupid in frames.
Adrenalin had the scenes in the basement, because of the tension and a good Tim Robbins. In acting, well, Fanning has a future and Cruise doesn't even cut his hair anymore. The rest remain unnoticed; also Spielberg's fault, who shouldn't have made the movie.