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WAR OF THE WORLDS Send This Review to a Friend
When Steven Spielberg was making “Jaws” he recounted in an interview how as a boy he used an 8mm camera and had his friends run around in a circle to look like more people in an action movie he was trying to make. Now Spielberg has all the technology available to humankind and all the cast members he wants. But to what avail? There’s no question about the technical marvels that he heaps on us with his “War of the Worlds,” based on the H. G. Wells novel and scripted by Josh Friedman and David Koepp. But after a while numbness sets in with respect to the story even as the special effects escalate. When it is over, one misses any emotional pull beyond the frightening moments that Spielberg manages to generate.
Perhaps it is the central set-up that by now seems passé. The potential terror these days is all too real, but it is likely to come not in the monster form of the giant machine-like creatures that burst apocalyptically from underground after having resided there waiting to be unleashed in an invasion to take over earth, or at least the eastern part of the United States. The real horror we face may spring from nuclear bombing, deadly germs, poisoning of the milk or water supplies or unleashing lethal chemicals. But if you like, take Spielberg’s film as a metaphor.
That still doesn’t solve the problem of trying to personalize the danger and destruction by focusing on one family. That’s where it all gets corny and thoroughly unbelievable as the family impossibly wades through the horrors and makes it from New Jersey to a devastated Boston.
Tom Cruise plays Ray, a dock worker whose former wife Mary Ann (Miranda Otto) is remarried and pregnant. His two children, a teenage son, Robbie (Justin Chatwin) and a 10-year-old daughter, Rachel (Dakota Fanning) are with him to spend a weekend. Ray is having trouble being a good dad, and both his son and daughter are rebellious, especially his angry son. But when terror strikes with all the blistering effects know-how can summon, Ray must rise to the occasion, protect his children and try to bridge the gap. Robbie wants to take off on his own, and Rachel does plenty of screaming and looking horrified. However, in her case the situation is more interesting because Fanning is a compelling young actress, even though she doesn’t have enough range here to show how compelling.
Any Spielberg movie assumes importance in view of the trajectory of his hugely successful work. He is strongest here in creating this onslaught of terror, with huge scenes of mass destruction and bloodiness, towering metallic-like creatures with thick snakelike tentacles that slither along seeking people to destroy. Tim Robbins plays a crazed man who wants to fight back with a hatchet or shotgun and resist. Meanwhile, troops amass and heap firepower on the invaders. We also see critters that look like giant bugs loping along.
Cruise acts well enough with what’s there in the screenplay, but he doesn’t loom as a figure who evokes much emotion. On this score, the level isn’t much different than any number of horror films in which innocents are caught in the midst of terror. That’s too bad, because Spielberg seems to have been after something more than a special effects triumph, as impressive as that part of the film is. A Paramount Pictures and DreamWorks Pictures release.
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