War of the Worlds was 2/3 of a great movie. For the first hour, hour and fifteen minutes, the film creates a pervasive sense of dread and hopelessness, the gee-whiz special effects always coincident with aw-shit discomfort. By that I mean the razzle-dazzle of the special effects, or even more the precision of Spielberg’s direction, never outweighs a sense of fear, of terror–of awe. That is exactly what an alien invasion film ought to do; there is a sense of inconsequentiality to the choices the characters make, a sense of hopelessness, of the inefficacy of the individual against much larger forces (bug-eyed monsters here, awe-inspiring aliens in Close Encounters, history in Schindler or Private Ryan).
But that version of Spielberg’s humanism–compassion for the small and helpless (which is why he’s so damn good with the child’s point of view)–unfortunately runs up against his other, more conventional rah-rah version of humanism, where can-do spirit and gumption make things work, by jiminy. And War gets stuck when it tries to graft the two together.
Some spoilage ahead. All of you who know the War story know that the aliens are almost ineffably evil and untouchable. For no really good reason, they kill people one by one, with a death ray; for no really good reason, they suck out the blood of some unfortunates and spray it around the countryside; for no really good reason, they carry some bound-for-bloodsucking victims around in baroque cages and then suck them up into the machine using a sphincter-like appendage, just ’cause it looks nastier, ’cause it evokes fear. And they are unstoppable; nothing anyone does can affect them. That is their raison d’etre: the aliens in War are the embodiment of awful (awe-full) terror and cruelty and inevitable destruction. The only thing that stops them is a virus: humanity is impotent, and action is meaningless.
The film repeats that, to a point. But grafted into the last third are a couple setpieces where Cruise makes something happen, knocks out one tripod. I can forgive the film’s “happy” end, where the whole family gets back together, all survived–because there’s no reason why they should survive, and no reason why they should die. As they embrace in the empty, desolate Boston streets, there is little comfort beyond the tiny constricted comforts of home. And home, as the film has shown us throughout, is rarely a safe place. (And think of the well-intentioned aliens invading the home to abduct the little boy in Close–the scariest alien scene ever–or the ghosts in Poltergeist; home is almost always as much a place of fear as of security in Spielberg’s oeuvre.)
But the ‘action-hero’ elements not only seem incongruous with the rest of the film’s attitude about action, they seem false. And that undercuts the dread, undermines the film’s tremendous effect up ’til that point.
I can think of any number of ways this could have been a great movie. Instead of fighting a loony Tim Robbins (who looms over dwarfish Cruise), pick someone small and seemingly-impotent–Danny DeVito. Having Cruise kill DeVito would seem cruel–perhaps necessary, but still cruel, and in keeping with the film’s attitude. Killing Robbins seems necessary, and emphasizes Cruise’s heroism. Pah.
Or have Robbins have a kid–who is sitting there, too, while Cruise dispatches the loony dad.
Or–have Cruise and his kid captured, but just carried around–’til the virus wipes out the tripod carrying them, and they escape… but through no effort of their own. Play up the dumb random luck (good and bad) which the story emphasizes.
Or… whatever. The film’s done. But it could have been a masterpiece. As is, it’s a great, scary film, with some flaws.
I think I liked War less than you, Mike. It just seemed too slight a movie for Spielberg and late June, but it is also true that I don’t much enjoy alien invasion movies so I don’t have a good sense of what makes one good and another less so.
But I guess I didn’t read the last third of the movie in the same way that you did. There is only really one setpiece where Cruise appears to fight, and that seems consistent with the rest of the War. Throughout the film, Cruise chooses to run to protect his family, and he has a couple of awkward arguments with his son (who looked way too old to be his son) about his failure to fight. He kills the Robbins character only when he threatens the safety of Cruise’s daughter, and he stands and fights only when his daughter is captured, and the only way to free her is to blow up a tripod. This is heroism to be sure, but small-scale, everyday heroism to protect one’s family. Those scenes didn’t seem out of place with the rest of War (or with the character that Cruise is given to begin with) especially since it is made perfectly clear that nothing humans do is responsible for the failure of the alien invasion.
That said, I’d have liked to see Cruise kill Danny DeVito too, or maybe John Travolta (since I saw Be Cool last night and fell asleep 20 minutes in).
I think I was frustrated with Robbins’ character–cynical me, I would have preferred to see Cruise make a difficult decision. While it was “hard” to kill Robbins, it also seemed very justifiable. I would have liked to see the character pushed to the edge, to make a decision to save his daughter which would be understandable but much more ambivalent.
Then, yes, the tripod is killed in a small way. And even when the army guys blow up the tripod in Boston, we know the thing is already doomed and ailing.
I think it just struck me–and I mean that as close to literally as I can, it *struck* me–how damned hopeless the first chunk of the film is. I found it brutally effective.
But, yeah, I like alien invasion movies, really liked War when I read it as a kid, really liked the earlier version by George Pal, was excited by the Welles radio version that I read about. What works for me in these stories is what worked in that scene from Close Encounters I noted: aliens do something scary, and it’s almost impossible to figure out a reason. The motives are alien. Why abduct that kid? Why do it in a fashion bound to freak out his mom? Why the big light, why the theatrics? That scared the shit out of me when I was younger. And the fear lingered well into the wonder of the finale.
Again, why do the aliens in War kill the way they do? It makes no sense–it’s as if the purpose is entirely to induce terror.
As to a slight film… well, perhaps. I can’t help but read its vision of forces and the individual up against almost all of his previous work. Duel, Jaws, Encounters, Empire of the Sun, Schindler, Private Ryan: there’s one small person up against a force that makes almost no sense, that seems overwhelming and imminent… And what really got me going in War was that, for the first time since Duel, and again only for a stretch of the film, Spielberg doesn’t offset the sense of terrible impotence and hopelessness with some more optimistic affects or effects–the general lack of humor, the fatigued even drained quality of Cruise’s face throughout…
I guess I was excited to see a full-throttle horror film. (And the aliens–at least out of some nostalgic or regressive fear–remind me of childhood anxieties. Which is cool.)
I won’t see this, but…
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050628/REVIEWS/50606007
What Roger said.
Things I’d like to see:
Tom Cruise killing Jennifer Aniston with a single blow to the kidneys
Tom Cruise killing Rip Taylor through an elaborate system of pulleys. either Rip Taylor or Wink Martindale
Tom Cruise mortally wounding Joe Rogan with a well-placed kick, sending the nasal bone into the brain
Tom Cruise leaving some nasty bruises on Kelly Ripa with a sockful of quarters….
more later
Didn’t Sean Penn already kill Robbins’ character in Mystic River? I have agree with Mike on nearly all levels. The first hour or so was truly effective, awe-inspiring, gloriously exploitative, blah, blah, blah; but I just got confused too many times during the final hour. Why would anybody want to get on a fucking ferry when alien tripods are marching about (it makes for a great set piece but really). Why is it that the film is forced to a halt in that damn basement? Didn’t Spielberg see Signs (indeed, water is bad, bad, bad in both films). I was also confused by the blood drinking and the all the alien gardening going on. Nicola knew the story but I did not so the whole aliens-don’t-have-the-proper-immunization-shots made no sense to me whatsoever. The only thing I saw them drinking was blood. Justin Chatwin, by the way, is seventeen and Cruise is 43 so it’s possible. Do you figure the “Morgan Freeman explains it all to you” bits were added at the last minute? I certainly would not have known what the hell was going on otherwise. I was expecting something else entirely and the ending was just silly (where will poor Tom go now!).
I enjoyed the cool aliens, gratuitous destruction and nifty tripods–but to echo previous remarks, where was the ending? And really, the whole family hung out safely in some Boston brownstone throughout the entire ordeal? not even grandpa’s cardigan was torn? I expected Lassie, Timmy, Sounder, The Yearling and Old Yeller to also come bounding out toward Tom at the movie’s end…
Saving Private Ryan: most of Europe is wasted so a wholesome all-American son can be reunited with his family.
Schindler’s List: most of European Jewry must be exterminated so a rich industrialist learns that throwing your lot in with fascists isn’t the best idea…
War of the Worlds: most of the earth’s population must be atomized so Tom can learn finally what it means to be a good father (letting your underage son to go off on a whim to join a seemingly doomed army??) and finally get that bitch ex-wife to say “thank you!”
in Communion, there are long and thin aliens, sort of off-white I think, as well as short and squat aliens, more blueish in color..but both are willing to get down and bust a move with Christopher Walken! That’s not just an invasion..it’s a funky invasion! Ring my (alien) bell!
Mauer & I used to have a snippet of dialogue from “Communion” on our answering machine. Something where Walken is describing, depressively, his contacts with the aliens, and his therapist asks when the first time was, and he says almost jauntily “Christmas!”
Communion! Now we’re talking. One of my favorite Walken performances, and a truly bewildering mesmerizing film. Imagine if you gave Walken a script about being abducted by aliens, and you’re directing. Every single time Walken has an acting suggestion you say, “Brilliant! Go for it.”
You’d end up with this film, which has Walken mumbling to himself, battling fire alarms, wearing hats, dancing (naturally), screaming at children, describing anal probes “Th-th the day after Christmas!” staring down African masks, and of course chit-chatting with aliens.
It goes to pieces near the end, but the first hour or so is absolutely amazing. I used to laugh at it, but I watch the film regularly and amazed at Walken’s presence in this film.
I guess that, examining my love of this film, and of some of Spielberg’s other s-f films (particularly Close Encounters), I am simply sick of the easy re-make.
And even at $150 million dollars, War of the Worlds is a cheap and easy remake. It’s why I didn’t like Batman Begins, and wont go see Bewitched, Bad News Bears, Dukes of Hazzard, Herbie: Fully Loaded, Longest Yard, Star Wars III/VI, Amityville Horror, or even Land of the Dead. It’s why I stopped watching James Bond movies 15 years ago. I want to see something a little original. Communion is a staggeringly original film. Under no circumstances can War of the Worlds be considered to be original.
Whoa, let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater here. “Dukes of Hazzard: The Movie” doesn’t deserve to be on this list. Its innovative casting and sly, subversive humor make this political satire on Howard Dean’s primary campaign a surefire Oscar winner. It is destined to become a classic, and I fully expect to see it on TCM by the end of the year.
I want to try and combine some comments from previous posts with the above. So first, back to WOTW. Since I had already read everyone’s comments, I went into this film knowing all about the brownstone ending. But I wasn’t quite as perplexed by the ending, as it seemed perfectly in tune with classics in the horror genre. The hero, flawed in some important way at the outset of the film, emerges triumphant and transformed when we defeats the alien monster in the end.
Earlier discussions pointed to the punishment of sins as the central theme of horror films, though I think Frisoli’s comment is a little more appealing to me as a nice, working definition of the horror film: “most of the earth’s population must be [insert catastrophe] so [insert lead character’s name] can learn finally what it means to be [insert proper social role].” We can trace this plot from the early classics in the genre, such as Nyby’s (or Hawks’s?) 1951 film “The Thing Another World,” right up to today, with Edgar Wright’s “Shaun of the Dead” (and, of course, Spielberg’s latest).
And yet, as Reynolds points out, Spielberg uses this plot in a lot of his other, non-horror, films (namely, Schindler’s List, Empire of the Sun, Close Encounters…”What the hell is going on around here?! Who the hell are you people???!!!”). So is Spielberg chasing his own personal vision? Or is he a horror genre director, poking his nose into other genres besides horror (war, bio-epic, literary adaptation, sci-fi), but essentially making disguised horror films? Ahhh, forget it. As I type it, the question seems lame to me.
Anywho…I was physicially shaken by the first hour of War of the Worlds (though this may be due to the fact that the Palmetto Grande keeps the temperature in its theaters at subarctic levels). Loved it, really. But I was distracted out of my trance of sheer terror when Tim Robbins entered the scene. Couldn’t help but think of “Team America.” Hey, can Spielberg please stop giving supporting roles to his Hollywood buddies? I mean, c’mon. Ted Danson as a unit commander in WWII? Who’s next? Mary Steenburgen as the plucky coach of the East German women’s slalom kanoe team? It’s too flipping distracting.
Some more thoughts about War of the Worlds, while the film is still on my mind.
Did anyone notice how a clear path lay ahead of Tom Cruise all throughout the film? I was a bit puzzled how he was able to make it out of New York so easily…all those stalled cars on the freeway, but mostly off to the shoulders for some reason. And again at his ex-wife’s home: with all that debris from the crashed commercial jet–right in the front yard, I might add–they’re still able to drive out of the subdivision with no obstacles.
Still, perhaps this was just a setup for the crucial scene where their van is finally stopped: not by any physical devastation or an ever-present tripod, but instead by a crazed mob of New Englanders.
Yeah, I felt the same way. The art direction favored Cruise at every juncture. No matter how atrocious the atrocity, Cruise found a way to navigate his way out of trouble. The only working automobile in Brooklyn was the first in a series of problematic plot points. I still want to believe in a set-up, even if it is simply that. Let’s hope Kushner is big enough to say no to the billion dollar man (somebody please say no to Spielberg–kick his ass and make him work harder).
Please no. When Spielberg “works hard” we have to sit through tripe like Schindler’s List and Color Purple. That’ll certianly be the case with the Munich movie.
And thinking back, I did rather enjoy Ralph Fiennes in Schindler’s List.
Another quick note: Spielberg says that he wanted the killer truck to sound like a T-Rex as it fell off the cliff at the end of “Duel.” So he used the soundtrack from an old 50s dinosaur movie. He then looped that same bit of soundtrack over the shark as it sinks to the ocean’s bottom when it’s blown up at the end of “Jaws.” So: when he was making “Duel,” Spielberg was really thinking of “Jurassic Park” and then when he made “Jaws” he was really thinking of “Duel,” and the old couple whose car is stolen in “Sugarland Express” were written into the script of “Jaws” but the scene was dropped and…is anyone listening?
I hear that the Munich picture ends with an attack by pterodactyls–but anti-semite pterodactyls. All wearing red dresses.
I still remember seeing Jaws on July 2, 1975 (a Tuesday). My best friend’s parents drove us to Lexington, Ky to celebrate his thirteenth birthday. What an astonishing experience. And I remember driving to Lexington two years later to see Close Encounters on its opening weekend with my parents and little brother. We then went out to eat at Darryl’s and talked throughout about aliens and space and the great unknown, etc., etc. It was one of the few times my entire family seemed to work together as a family (the memory is nearly bittersweet to be honest). And ET, well I must have seen that damn film 10 or 11 times during the summer or 1982, and I wrote a very impassioned philosophy paper in an Aesthetics class explaining why ET was a better film than Ghandi (I was a geek) in Spring of ’83. But I’ve felt let down by Spielberg during the last couple of decades. Amistad, Saving Private Ryan (why did Hanks have to be a goddamned high school teacher!!! would it not have been more effective if he had been an accountant) The Color Purple, AI, The Terminal. Sure there are delights to be found in the Jurassic Park films and Raiders, Catch Me If You Can and Minority Report and, with some judicious cuts, Empire of the Sun could have been a masterwork, but Spielberg seems to be tripping over his halo (or maybe his bank account) more often than not. What he needs is a strong editor and writers who aren’t afraid to call him out on his excesses.
…and his self-plagiarism. The scene in “War of the Worlds” where the tripod sends a probe into Tim Robbins’ celler is right out of “Jurassic Park” (the scene where the raptors try to sniff out the two kids in the kitchen). He even uses the trick with the reflection again. Surely he must have been saying to himself, “I’ve done this.”
watched this last night. the first half was fine–as everyone has already noted. the second half was blah and predictable–as everyone has already noted. i don’t know about genre cliches or sentimental humanism but i think i preferred this movie when it was directed by m. night shyamalan and was called “signs”.
the absolute worst thing about it though is dakota fanning. if this is what children (i mean the actress, not the character) are like, bring on the blood-sucking aliens.
I guess Devito is starring in another animation flick called Deck The Halls. It should be out for Xmas in late November.
this is one great website you have, mrskin. thanks!