Spielberg's war protest film(?)

Rating: 7/10 (7 July 2005)

Don't be fooled by my seemingly high rating for this film. This one was a big disappointment for me. It's just one of those films that, after having seen it, I found...unnecessary. Even from the first time I saw the teaser trailers I thought, how is this in any way different from "Independence Day?" Then the Super Bowl ads piqued my interest and my anticipation grew. It looked like it would be what Independence Day wasn't--a grim tail of invasion that pulled no punches. This one might actually be scary. but then, I thought, we got scary aliens (or creepy at the very least) in Shyamalan's "Signs" 3 years ago. How then can Spielberg's HG Wells update stand apart?
Well, it does begin with a lot of intensity. Aliens start vaporizing people within the first 20 minutes, right after some character introductions. I found it interesting that the aliens' Beams of Fury (my name) were very similar to the "spray of sparks" from the 1953 original--which at the time must have been terrifying in themselves. "War" circa 2005 shares many common traits with the original film but probably only because both are adapted from the same book.
After the invasion from below begins, Spielberg maintains the level of intensity throughout...which becomes a problem. The intensity never lets up enough to create genuine fright. You need to let people breathe easy for a while, then let them have it, then repeat. "War of the Worlds" is all peaks, no valleys.
Other than never letting up, it never lightens up either. There is little humor to be found in this, making it not much fun. That's trouble, during the summer season especially.
Spielberg seems intent on giving audiences a study of fear in an age of terrorism. For a time, this works. But the suspension of disbelief, at least for me, expired early on this one. Few of us are genuinely afraid of an alien invasion. But most people these days are afraid of terrorism. The invasion analogy worked well in 1953 but doesn't work now...or does it?
Perhaps the invaders in the analogy aren't terrorists at all but American planes and bombs. Let's do a little calendar pointing. A year ago Tom Cruise and Steven Spielberg had openings in their schedules at the same time. The Iraq occupation had by that time become a hellish nightmare. So this project that had been a blip on both men's radars now was possible. And what's better, it had a context. But perhaps the assumed terrorists = aliens analogy was too simple. In 2003 we had a massive invasion, followed by uncertainty and destabilization, followed by hell (which Iraq still is anywhere outside the Green Zone).
So "War" may not be a protest film, but may well symbolize the violence and chaos that we have been seeing for over two years now in Iraq. We witnessed a normal society in which people felt relatively safe walking around on the streets, thrown into chaos by an invasion that few there understood. All they want is for life to go back to normal again.
Sounds like a movie I just saw.
For what it's worth, I'd rank the big alien invasion films of the last decade as follows: 1. "Signs" 2. "Independence Day" 3. "War of the Worlds"