War of the Worlds (12A)
Posted by Guest Writer on Mon, 05 Sep 2005.
Director:- Steven Spielberg
Starring:- Tom Cruise, Dakota Fanning, Justin Chatwin, Miranda Otto.
Ray Ferrier (Cruise) is a divorced dockworker and less-than-perfect father living in New Jersey. After his ex-wife (Otto) drops his teenage son, Robbie (Chatwin) and 11-year old daughter, Rachel (Fanning) off for the weekend, a strange and powerful storm touches down. He witnesses an extraordinary event, a towering three-legged machine buried beneath the earth that emerges and incinerates everything in sight. His life is shaken up fiercely by the arrival of these destructive intruders. Aliens, which have come in troops to destroy the Earth. As they charge through the country in a flood of mass destruction and violence, Ray must try to save his children. As the world fends for itself by an extraterrestrial army of tripods, its citizens must save humankind.
This is Spielberg’s version of the H.G.Wells classic. This also marks a second collaboration with Tom Cruise; their first was the sci-fi adventure “Minority Report.”
Spielberg does really well in keeping the sci-fi and disaster in the film. It definitely has a darker edge since “Close Encounters” and “E.T.”
However, even though it is called “War of the Worlds,” I, as a member of the audience didn’t feel as if I was shown enough of the actual war between the humans and the aliens. For example, the ‘hill scene’ in the movie, we see flashing lights, smoke and fire, and the army giving all they have. However, we don’t see the authentic action between the two sides.
This is also, where Ray’s son leaves to fight with the army. At this point, I actually thought that he was going to give up his life. (He does not)
This nicely leads on to how Robbie survived as well as the other characters, the ex-wife, her new husband and the grandparents. The answer is that we don’t know how they did because we’re not shown it. Maybe it was because there was too much focus on Cruise or Spielberg purposefully cut those scenes out and put them on the DVD instead.
In addition, having the whole family surviving at the end of the movie is definitely Spielberg’s style.
Verdict?
“War of the Worlds” is a disaster movie but not a masterpiece. I say this because I believe the last half hour lets it down, as well as other factors mentioned above. However, it maintains the sci-fi edge and the effects are brilliant but its just another summer flick.
Moreover, you don’t want to go near these aliens!
By Parishaa