A Pinoy Blog About Nothing

Aliens and Steven Spielberg - what’s not to like? In this version of War of the Worlds Tom Cruise is Tom Cruise while child actress Dakota Fanning at least acts her age. But the attraction here of course isn’t the actors who are meant to make that connection with the audience. Sure not everyone looks like Tom Cruise even if his character lives in New Jersey but his divorced dad Ray Ferrier was meant to be Everyman at least if you live in the US.

The attraction here are the aliens, the massive destruction of the US’ eastern seaboard, the inevitable confrontation between the US Armed Forces against the aliens and the obvious, forgone conclusion. It is meant to be seen on the big screen because Spielberg knows how to play for the medium. But yes, it is a BLSM - Big, Loud, Stupid Movie - and you shouldn’t expect more than that.

Spoiler warning? Are you kidding? You know how this one will turn out before you step into the theater.

From the first moment we see Cruise’s Ray Ferreir, we know he wouldn’t be in any real danger. He is after all the star. Plus he has two kids to look after. He starts off as a dead-beat dad who wouldn’t even order food for his kids and would sooner criticize his son for rooting for the Red Sox than stay loyal to the Yankees. That’s short-hand for “oh wait this character will be redeemed after he goes through the main conflict of movie”. Which, sure enough, happens.

Spielberg to his credit doesn’t let up from after he’s introduced the main players. From the first moment the aliens show up on screen, it’s mayhem and destruction all the way to the end. The best scenes of course if the first time we see the alien machines coming from the ground. The scale in which Spielberg decided to pull this scene off is definitely one of the highlights of the film.

There is no question Spielberg can manipulate special effects to effectively tell his story. That’s a given and War of the Worlds does not disappoint in that regard. There was one scene where Ray and his two kids were talking in their vehicle. It was a crucial point in defining the characters then but the way Spielberg did it was very slick indeed. Normally you’d see the director cut from one character to another, here you’ll see the camera weaving in and out of the car, while the vehicle was moving - all in one take.

Unfortunately, for all the visual flourishes of the movie it comes up short on who we should care about. Dislikeable Ray? His uncommunicative son Robbie? Rachel the claustrophobe who didn’t have enough sense to follow his dad’s requests? Was it the idea that it should take an alien invasion to realize a family’s family no matter what? Triumph of the human spirit despite the huge odds?

Where were the tanks being stomped upon by the tripods or flung across the fields? Where’s the spirited mob like Tim Robbins’ character who decided to fight and ultimately pay for their brash decisions? Where was the feeling of hopelessness that permeated in each of page of H.G.Wells’ book? Sure Spielberg has that sequence with the mob and the Ferreir’s van which eerily resembled a zombie attack only these are living people, the sequence where they were trying to make their way to a ferry, and the bit with the burning train. It had that apocalyptic feel, the degeneration of human society as they are faced with the prospect of extinction. Unfortunately, we didn’t get a lot of those.

But the alien tripods were awesome. The aliens are far from E.T. and Close Encounters of the Third Kind as you can imagine. It’s a great popcorn movie and if you can take it as just that, you’ll enjoy yourself.

Check out the http://www.war-of-the-worlds.org/ for more info on the H.G. Wells book as well as its other incarnations in other forms of media.

Nitpicking:

1) When the aliens zap humans, they turn into dust but leave their clothes intact. Uhm. Why?

2) Why would they zap humans and then mine them for blood later on? Why not “set phasers on stun” or something?

3) If they buried their machines “millions of years ago” what they hell where they waiting for? They got scared to take on dinosaurs?

4) For all the digging humans have made, we never encountered one single alien machinery?

5) Poor research on the part of aliens. Not knowing the environment of their conquest is just poor planning.