The
Film: War of the Worlds (2005) BUY IT
The Principals: Cruise. Spielberg. Koepp. Robbins. FANNING.
The Premise: Tripods come from the ground and ruin the world. Tom Cruise does everything he can to keep his family from being turned into dust or blood spray. You may have heard about this film or the radio play, book, TV shows, and films which preceded it.
“These themed hotels get on my nerves.”
Is It Good: It’s better than good. It’s huge and terrifying. It’s beautiful and utterly Spielbergian. I cannot believe how many great little moments there are in this movie and though I feel like Janunsz Kaminski’s probably the wrong D.P. for this project (the shimmering lights on Dakota during the river sequence for example) it all works so well. The movie has all these giant moments and yet still takes plenty of opportunities to get small and quiet. It works tremendously and because people let the size of the project and the presence of Tom Cruise override their common sense when it comes to good mainstream movies, it’s kind of underrated. If a movie that over $150,000,000 can be underrated.
Cruise has a tough task here, and he plays sort of a loser who is forced to become a man of action. It’s tough to buy him in the part initially, but it escalates quite well and when the big sequences in Tim Robbins’ basement happen, he’s proven once again that regardless of what you think of his real life, the guy is just about the best there is at what he does.
Furthermore, that sequence is the most controversial in the film. But it does so much with so little. The aliens’ goals, their methods, the extent of their damage is handled in some nice and somewhat subtle exposition. That scene ultimately is probably the meatiest in the film and it allows Spielberg to have some really nice little moments. Hitchcock would have been proud.
Middle America had it coming.
Is It Worth A Look: I was a little worried about revisiting this, but am glad I did. It’s still great and I think Christopher Nolan got some sound and music ideas from it. And it’s far from toothless, with the thousands of onscreen casualties and the fields of blood and carnage. If you’ve seen it and dismissed it, grab the Blu-Ray (from our link preferably) and revisit one really raw and vicious event film from Hollywood’s best and brightest.
It really is sort of a classic.
The Witness theme park never caught on.
Random Anecdotes: Kenny from Rescue Me is the pilot of the barge! Justin Chatwin is really not a very good actor. The alien designs, which I remember folks complaining about, are awesome. This film was written, shot, and delivered in record time, which should be taught in the fictional school of BIG BUDGET FILMMAKING. If this really were to happen, I’d survive. Because I’d have no interest in being a hero.