War of the Worlds

Tuesday, July 5; Loews Boston Common
* * * ¼ (out of four)

It’s a little clichéd, but I think it still applies. Every form of entertainment – whether it be a movie, a TV show, a theatre production or a book – will fail if you can’t hook an audience from the beginning. If there is anything Spielberg knows how to do, it’s get an audience to pay attention. War of the Worlds has a hook that basically refuses to let go.

Spielberg’s decision to start the movie with a direct reading from the H.G. Wells classic (with a near-flawless by Morgan Freeman) immediately establishes a sense of foreboding and danger. “Yet across the gulf of space… intellects vast and unsympathetic regarded this earth with envious eyes, and slowly and surely drew their plans against us.” The movie begins with those plans more than adequately drawn, and almost immediately (within 20 minutes) the plans are in motion.

What makes War of the Worlds stand out from other alien invasion movies (Independence Day, Mars Attacks, etc) is that nothing’s really explained. In this case, it’s a good thing. There was no real surprise when the tripods rose out of the ground and starting blowing crap up; it’s pretty standard fare. What got me was that shortly thereafter the exterminations started. War implies that there are two sides involved; that’s not the case here. We (as humans) are getting heartlessly, mercilessly annihilated, with no reason being made clear. And that’s scary.

The range the movie shows enhances that fear. New York has been hit by every imaginable disaster on film, so that’s no so shocking. To see my home city of Boston getting hit, or London, or some small village in Africa (all of which are shown in the film) changes it from an attack on “The City of _______” to an attack on the people of the world. A city is impersonal… but I am a citizen of Earth, and the small time stuff sends the message that the little house that just got trampled could very well have been mine.

I also like how there are no heroes here. Sure, Tom Cruise learns how to be a father and care for his kids in a way he didn’t previously understand, but with the exception of one out-of-character moment, he’s just as terrified and justifiably cowardly as anyone else would be in his situation. His concern lies with his family and with himself, not with the overall safety and security of humankind.

During the promotional stage for the movie, Cruise got a lot of flack for his antics, which I addressed in a previous post. All I will say on him is that I was happy to see him not playing the same caricature of himself to which he is prone. As a father, he’s an asshole, for lack of a better term. He’s more Vanilla Sky than anything else. Dakota Fanning continues to demonstrate why she is (or should be) the most sought-after child star in a very long time. She demonstrated that no one sells pure, unadulterated fear like she does. The only person who doesn’t quite work for me is Tim Robbins. He’s playing a stereotype in a movie that until that point had done pretty decent in avoiding the vast majority. He’s token Crazy Paranoid Guy Who Happens To Be Right, but he doesn’t mix well with Cruise’s family or the dynamic of , and thus forces Cruise into a situation where he has to react in a completely out-of-character way.

The best parts in War of the Worlds are nearly the same as the best parts in Signs, another “normal-guy” alien thriller. These are the parts which show people reacting as real people would, especially when worked into a frenzy. To me, the theft of Cruise’s car is akin in Joaquin Phoenix with tin foil on his head. This is what people do when they are very, very scared. War of the Worlds kept me very scared for a good half hour, because it hits all the right buttons to make you say, “That could be me!”