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War of the Worlds
Steven Spielberg is second to none in knowing how to entertain the hell out of an audience, but it seems that with War of the Worlds, he runs entirely on auto-pilot. Think about the awe you felt when the alien ship first communicated with us in Close Encounters of the Third Kind, or the terror that tantalized you when the shark first revealed himself in Jaws (“We’re going to need a bigger boat.”), or the exhilaration of the great boulder-chase sequence in Raiders of the Lost Ark, or similar scenes in masterpieces like Duel, Minority Report, and E.T. Even his inferior adventure films like A.I., Hook, Jurassic Park, and The Lost World contain moments of breathtaking wonder in which Spielberg genuinely convinces us that the special effects that we are watching are real, and that the fantasies he has created are grounded in the real world. War of the Worlds feels like a film made not by the master filmmaker, but by a lesser director who has studied all of Spielberg’s films and can reproduce his devices but none of his soul. It’s almost as if the director feels that he has been making this type of film for so long, he no longer requires any creative input. War of the Worlds plays like an assembly line of Spielberg’s greatest hits, but without any of the rhythm or style that made his previous films classics. Maybe he wanted to utilize a simple story that could successfully homage all of his older films; instead, we are given an utterly ridiculous film that only reminds us how better this earlier films were. The story bears only the slightest resemblance to H.G. Well’s classic novel about Martians invading 19th century London. The book was a terrific adventure story with some genuinely chilling images, not least of all the Martian killing machines emerging from meteors and descriptions of a chaotic Great Britain as thousands of people try to escape and end up fodder for our invaders. Wells was able to take these notions of alien invasion and render them plausible, because the Martians had a credible reason for coming to Earth: Their planet was dying, and they hurriedly put together a plan to come and take Earth as their own, which began by shooting themselves to Earth via gigantic meteors. Their eventual defeat (of course, Wells wouldn’t end with the total destruction of the human race) was one that rang with irony—considering the Martian’s hasty but brilliantly-conceived plan, they are ultimately annihilated by one minor but fatal oversight. This oversight remains in Spielberg’s film, as do the three-legged fighting machines, but the changes that the film makes are so implausible that the aliens (not Martians in this case; at least, we don’t think they are—the film never says) come across as entirely incompetent, which is odd considering their brilliance for creating unstoppable technology. You’d think that they’d have spent more time studying the earth before attacking, especially since it is established that their “intelligence is vast and cool.” Another major flaw: In the film, the aliens planted these machines in the ground millions of years ago, and they zap themselves into the gigantic robots via electrical storms. I wonder how deep the machines were buried, and why erosion and drilling (and for that matter, the breaking of Pangaea) didn’t utterly destroy them or betray their hiding places after so much time. I don’t mind implausibility in films as long as our intelligence isn’t completely insulted. Some sort of explanation is due, even if it’s jumbled. Yet the above major oversights are entirely unresolved, and that is only the beginning of the groan-inducing coincidences that take place in the film. Another example: The hero is chasing after his young daughter from the basement. She runs up the stairs and into the above house. Both are fleeing from war machines that literally standing outside the door. He loses sight of her—she could be anywhere in the house—and yet he runs outside to look for her. There is absolutely no reason why the little girl would run outside, straight into the mouths of the lions. Yet she is outside, simply so that more terrifying events can happen to the father and daughter. Real people don’t act like this, but characters in a dumb action movie might. That we never learn the motivations of the aliens is also a major problem. Are they here to conquer? Certainly, but why? There is never a sense that these are really intelligent, alien creatures with clear intentions. As they walk about in their tripods and bring death to everyone they come in contact with, they come across merely as boogey-men. Surely there could have been some sort of reason given as to why they would want to attack the Earth. Wells explained in his novel that Mars was losing its atmosphere and the Martians needs an evacuation plan; why is there no explanation given here? This is especially shocking considering that this is Spielberg that we’re talking about—the man who has given more personality to aliens than any other filmmaker in the history of cinema. Why reduce the aliens here to CGI-Godzillas? Quickly realizing that the storyline wasn’t going anywhere, I made an attempt to focus on the character development that Spielberg is renowned for. All of his protagonists are thoroughly likable everymen who have some pretty glaring flaws—i.e., Tom Cruise’s drug addiction in Minority Report or Quint’s traumatized past in Jaws. There are a few attempts made at developing plausible, interesting characters here, but they quickly fall flat. The story concerns the world-invasion through the intimate eyes of a divorced father (Tom Cruise) and his two children (Justin Chatwin and Dakota Fanning). Tom Cruise starts off as a potentially interesting, cocky father, but he is quickly reduced to running and screaming, with no discernable characteristics otherwise. He essentially becomes a cardboard cutout from his character in Minority Report. Spielberg is also famous for casting children in his adventure films, usually to great effect. Quite simply, he knows how to convincingly direct children and get honest reactions out of them (see E.T.). As the young daughter, Dakota Fanning is cute enough, but she isn’t given anything to do but look scared, wail, and be carried by Cruise. It’s as if Spielberg found a little girl so adorable that he forgot that he actually had to direct her. It made me long for Drew Barrymore’s cutie-pie little sister in E.T., or Abigail Breslin in M. Night Shyamalan’s Signs. The worst offense, at least character-wise, comes about midway through the film when Cruise and his children stumble across a police officer who has lost his family to the aliens. The man, played by Tim Robbins, is clearly going mad, but he is sympathetic and not an evil man. He takes Cruise and his children in, and reveals to them his plan: He wants to live underground and form an army of human resistance who can take out the aliens. This plan is supposed to come across as ludicrous; I find it a very brave and noble notion—certainly better than any idea that Tom Cruise’s character has been able to devise, who prefers to simply run away as fast as he can. That Robbins is portrayed as such a villain is stupefying and very one-dimensional, especially since he seems to be the only character in the film that really has a plan and has the nerve to try and implement it. What of the visuals that Spielberg has become famous for? What of the magic and awe found in his creature effects and action sequences? Again, War of the Worlds fails to deliver, even on the most basic level. I have already mentioned the boogyman-ness that demystifies the aliens and their machines. They are simply CGI creations, and no more. Call me old-fashioned, I miss the old days of puppets and animatronics. At the very least, E.T. and Yoda looked legitimately real. These days, people see with CGI what they know are illusions—the aliens are clearly animated—and they are comfortable with the counterfeit reality. I’d rather stare at a puppet that looked real than an incredible computer animation that looks superimposed on the screen. There is no sense of danger here, no awe. Just CGI images. I’m also disappointed by the look of the aliens, which is basically a variation of the creatures in Independence Day. I guess I’m getting a little tired of the typical bald-headed, big-eyed aliens who squeal a lot but never utter any discernable dialogue to one another. Of all people, I would have expected Spielberg to be able to conceive an entirely original alien species, but he goes for the standard look. Instead of smooth and shiny, what about ape-looking beasts? Or creatures that slither around like slugs? Here are ideas, off the top of my head, that are more original than the creatures in War of the Worlds. If I recall, the Martians looked like birds in Well’s novel; why couldn’t Spielberg have gone with this description? The action sequences are also recycled from earlier, better Spielberg films. There is a scene in which little Fanning hides from the aliens in a big house as they slink around, searching for prey. If you have seen Jurassic Park, you will immediately recognize this as almost identical to the scene in that film involving raptors in a kitchen. In another moment, a panicked mob surrounds a car and tries to break in, and we see the whole ordeal mainly through the eyes of the passengers. These are images plagiarized, nearly shot-by-shot, from Spielberg’s Empire of the Sun. The tripods blink lights and make sounds like the monolith UFOs in Close Encounters. The endless shots of refugees look like the recently-freed Holocaust survivors from Schindler’s List. Even Fanning looks and sounds like Drew Barrymore in E.T., and the shots of Cruise holding her and he runs from the coming terror are indistinguishable to Cruise holding Samantha Morton in Minority Report. Instead of creating a new bag of tricks, Spielberg is content to recycle his old ones, and we cannot help but feel that for all of his talent, there is absolutely nothing new or inspired here. If you have seen Spielberg’s earlier works, there will be no reason to see War of the Worlds. If you haven’t seen them, I do not believe that this will be an acceptable substitute. I shudder when I think about the repercussions of a director who can so brilliantly conceive the inspired Close Encounters of the Third Kind (which you should rent instead of watching this) and, nearly thirty years later, create the thoroughly uninspired War of the Worlds. It is a chilling sign of the status of science fiction films when the master has reduced his films to such boring, ill-conceived clichés. I hope that Spielberg hasn’t become so comfortable in his role as a director that he feels like he has no more room to grow. This is, hands down, his worst film. Cast: Paramount Pictures presents
a film by Dream Works SKG. Directed by Steven Spielberg. Written
by Josh Friedman and David Keopp, from the novel by H.G. Wells…sort
of. Rated PG-13 from frightening sequences, violence, and language.
Running time: 116 minutes. Original United States theatrical release
date: June 29, 2005. |
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