sees...
War of the Worlds:
The ten-second plot synopsis is this: Cruise, hard-working everyman, and less-than-perfect father, bonds with his kids over a long weekend of intergalactic genocide. The ten-second review runs as follows: The War of the Worlds is no Independence Day - and that’s not a compliment.
As a Spielberg fan who prefers Jurassic Park to Schindler’s List, I assure the reader than I didn’t enter the theater with a chip on my shoulder. Ranking my SS top five - Close Encounters, Jaws, E.T., Raiders of the Lost Ark, and Jurassic Park - all of these are A-movie treatments of B-movie subjects, just like War of the Worlds. Also like War of the Worlds, all of my top five Spielberg films deal with contact between simple, ordinary humans and powerful forces - good or evil. But the devil is in the details, and War of the Worlds simply doesn’t rank with Spielberg’s other progeny.
For instance, Close Encounters and Jaws both highlight the power of that which is other. One the one hand we have Roy Neary trying to make contact with ethereal, musical aliens, and one the other hand, we see Martin Brody trying to save swimmers from nature’s best killing machine. Both tell ripping yarns as the heroes encounter resistance from the immoral bureaucracy. These stories have a powerful simplicity and grace: both are ultimately about awe and wonder at that which is beyond us.
War of the Worlds, however, is ultimately about alien antipathy on such a huge scale that it dwarfs all human accomplishment. Like incarnation of Jesus Christ, Close Encounters, E.T., Jaws and Raiders elevate the importance of the human person through connection with the transcendent. War of the Worlds has none of these strengths.
It treats humans with no more regard than a schoolboy treats ants. People fleeing in terror are vaporized, literally, left and right of Tom Cruise - while no tears are shed and no hair is harmed on the hero’s head. Spielberg has sometimes taken human life less than seriously (for more of this see the black humor 1941 and Temple of Doom), but it is surprising that Spielberg could make this film post-Schindler’s List and Saving Private Ryan.
Except for the solid camera work and excellent performances War of the Worlds might as well have been directed by someone else. Expanding on the ten-second plot synopsis - the movie’s central characters, father, son, and daughter, all must flee their Jersey home when aliens rise from under the streets. Perhaps the best scenes in the movie arise from the close interaction of this less-functional family. The problem is, none of this is organically related to the movie. In a sense, we are given two movies. There is the movie starring Tom Cruise and the movie starting Industrial Light and Magic - and the two have very little to do with one another.
In so many ways War of the Worlds shows a complete indifference for the basic rules of storytelling. Partly H. G. Wells is to blame. Over the last few years the trend has been to adapt source material faithfully, catering to the literary or comic-book crowds, but Wells’ story (God rest his atheist soul) has all the emotional depth and complexity of a Twilight Zone episode.
Spielberg and Cruise/Wagner, who produced the film, keep the bracketing plot structure from the book. I won’t spoil the ending, but let me say that makes the middle hour of the movie completely irrelevant. As for the beginning of the movie, I was delighted that for once the previews covered only the first fifteen minutes. After the signature image of the minivan racing ahead of the exploding freeway, we’re off the map. What happens for the rest of the film? Well, a series of exciting episodes, more or less connected to each other, happen for another hour and a half, and then the credits roll.
I wish I could say more in praise of the film. But the sad truth is, if you want an interesting story about aliens involving Tom Cruise, you’d better turn on the E! Channel rather than head to the movie theater.
The ten-second plot synopsis is this: Cruise, hard-working everyman, and less-than-perfect father, bonds with his kids over a long weekend of intergalactic genocide. The ten-second review runs as follows: The War of the Worlds is no Independence Day - and that’s not a compliment.
As a Spielberg fan who prefers Jurassic Park to Schindler’s List, I assure the reader than I didn’t enter the theater with a chip on my shoulder. Ranking my SS top five - Close Encounters, Jaws, E.T., Raiders of the Lost Ark, and Jurassic Park - all of these are A-movie treatments of B-movie subjects, just like War of the Worlds. Also like War of the Worlds, all of my top five Spielberg films deal with contact between simple, ordinary humans and powerful forces - good or evil. But the devil is in the details, and War of the Worlds simply doesn’t rank with Spielberg’s other progeny.
For instance, Close Encounters and Jaws both highlight the power of that which is other. One the one hand we have Roy Neary trying to make contact with ethereal, musical aliens, and one the other hand, we see Martin Brody trying to save swimmers from nature’s best killing machine. Both tell ripping yarns as the heroes encounter resistance from the immoral bureaucracy. These stories have a powerful simplicity and grace: both are ultimately about awe and wonder at that which is beyond us.
War of the Worlds, however, is ultimately about alien antipathy on such a huge scale that it dwarfs all human accomplishment. Like incarnation of Jesus Christ, Close Encounters, E.T., Jaws and Raiders elevate the importance of the human person through connection with the transcendent. War of the Worlds has none of these strengths.
It treats humans with no more regard than a schoolboy treats ants. People fleeing in terror are vaporized, literally, left and right of Tom Cruise - while no tears are shed and no hair is harmed on the hero’s head. Spielberg has sometimes taken human life less than seriously (for more of this see the black humor 1941 and Temple of Doom), but it is surprising that Spielberg could make this film post-Schindler’s List and Saving Private Ryan.
Except for the solid camera work and excellent performances War of the Worlds might as well have been directed by someone else. Expanding on the ten-second plot synopsis - the movie’s central characters, father, son, and daughter, all must flee their Jersey home when aliens rise from under the streets. Perhaps the best scenes in the movie arise from the close interaction of this less-functional family. The problem is, none of this is organically related to the movie. In a sense, we are given two movies. There is the movie starring Tom Cruise and the movie starting Industrial Light and Magic - and the two have very little to do with one another.
In so many ways War of the Worlds shows a complete indifference for the basic rules of storytelling. Partly H. G. Wells is to blame. Over the last few years the trend has been to adapt source material faithfully, catering to the literary or comic-book crowds, but Wells’ story (God rest his atheist soul) has all the emotional depth and complexity of a Twilight Zone episode.
Spielberg and Cruise/Wagner, who produced the film, keep the bracketing plot structure from the book. I won’t spoil the ending, but let me say that makes the middle hour of the movie completely irrelevant. As for the beginning of the movie, I was delighted that for once the previews covered only the first fifteen minutes. After the signature image of the minivan racing ahead of the exploding freeway, we’re off the map. What happens for the rest of the film? Well, a series of exciting episodes, more or less connected to each other, happen for another hour and a half, and then the credits roll.
I wish I could say more in praise of the film. But the sad truth is, if you want an interesting story about aliens involving Tom Cruise, you’d better turn on the E! Channel rather than head to the movie theater.