War of the Worlds (Mark's Take)
01/08/2005 . Source: Mark R. Leeper 
It is easier to admire than to enjoy Steven Spielberg's adaptation of The War of the Worlds, says Mark. The film is dark and bleak with little real sense of wonder - the thing that should be Spielberg's forte. The alien technology is not allowed to steal attention away from the human story, but that may not be a good thing. This is a film that is dark in just about every meaning of the word. Buy War of the Worlds in the USA - or Buy War of the Worlds in the UK  Rating: low +1 (-4 to +4) or 5/10
When H. G. Wells wrote The War of the Worlds, his intention was to show Britons
what it was like to be on the receiving end of an imperialist super-power invading
a country. His main interest was on the effect that such an invasion had on
the English population. When the public read the book, the strange alien war
machines became much more the focus than he had intended. His descriptions of
alien war machines captured people's imagination and upstaged the human story.
That is a problem that Steven Spielberg carefully prevented when he focused
on one family in trouble. But films about families under stress are many and
films about tripod alien war machines are few. His film is less in the spirit
of earlier versions and more like a big-budget Signs.
Spielberg directed his version for Dreamworks (the company he partially owns)
and for Paramount Pictures (who produced the 1953 George Pal version). The plot
is mostly about a divorced father trying to protect his children against a very
serious threat. That very serious threat just happens to come from an alien
invader. Curiously enough, it is the human relations that get the most attention
in the first half of the film. There is one impressive science fictional sequence
in the first half, but much that I would have liked to see had been eliminated
from the plot. Telling the story of War of the Worlds without having cylinders
arrive from Mars and be ignored is like trying to tell the story of THE PHANTOM
OF THE OPERA without a chandelier scene. Telling War of the Worlds without even
a mention of Mars is like telling THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA without a mask. In
the second half the alien invasion is more center stage.
In this version Tom Cruise plays dock-worker Ray Ferrier, himself an operator
of heavy machinery, who just happens to have custody of his two estranged children
on the weekend that the aliens choose to invade. His goal is to get his children
to safety and hopefully to find his ex-wife who was headed for Boston. Funny
things start happening when odd storms start with new sort of lightning. Its
electro-magnetic pulse seems to be killing everything electrical. An SUV nearby
dies along everything else electrical, but Ferrier realizes that the problem
is probably just a fried solenoid, hence he ends up with a magic SUV that still
drives when others have stopped. And so begins a road trip though a country
under siege. Spielberg's emphasis is as much on Ferrier's problems dealing with
people, both his children and the panicking hordes wherever he goes, than with
his problem with the alien invaders.
The film starts with Morgan Freeman's voice reading the quote from the novel
that no one would have believed at the end of the century that human events
were being scrutinized. That may have been true at the beginning of the 20th
century, but at the beginning of the 21st there was a whole tabloid-reading
sub- culture that not only would have believed it, they probably did believe
it. The film also shows some of the limitation of the alien heat ray, here transformed
into more of a disintegration beam. Whatever it was, it did not have nearly
the destructive power that terrorists today would have. The tripods are strong,
but they hardly qualify as weapons of mass destruction. Other questions I had
was why were there avid reporters going around collecting news when it did not
seem there was sufficient infrastructure left to broadcast the news they were
collecting. The method chosen for delivering the aliens to Earth is original
but not logical and leaves too many unanswered questions.
The story is slow to get started with the early part of the film having Cruise's
biggest problems being to get through to children that A) something really bad
is happening and B) they have to follow his direction. Realistically A is easier
than B. Later the script takes more from the situations in the novel. Lines,
scenes, and situations are also taken from 1938 radio play produced by Orson
Welles and the 1953 film adaptation produced by George Pal. This script owes
a debt to all three versions.
I suppose that Steven Spielberg films are known for good special effects. Curiously,
the only really striking effect in this film is the tripod war machines. There
the film really excels over other versions. While the exact look of the war
machines is not memorable, they look as formidable and frightening as any version
(including the famous "Classic Illustrated" comic book's interpretation that
many of the boomer generation grew up with). Wells never really says how tall
a Martian war machine is and Spielberg uses this as license to portray them
as very tall and very powerful. The only other really memorable image is a quick
view of a destroyed train. The visualization of the aliens themselves is a disappointment
with faces that look too human, much more human than the George Pal Martians
or the Martians Wells describes. In general the look of the film is dismal,
dark, and gray. The action seems to take place under constantly overcast skies.
Somehow Tom Cruise as a dock-worker is just not my vision of the introspective
main character in the Wells novel. Dakota Fanning actually manages to out-act
Cruise, or at least steal their scenes together. That is no small feat. Justin
Chatwin as the son Robby is instantly forgettable. The best actor in the film
is Miranda Otto who plays Mary Ann Ferrier, the divorced wife. Unfortunately
she is not on the screen long enough make much of a difference.
This War of the Worlds is no more faithful to the book than was the 1953 film
version. With the exception of the formidable interpretation of Wells's tripod
war machines there was no strong reason to make this invasion story an adaptation
of the Wells novel. I guess the fact that it was supposedly based on the Wells
helped build the audience. It is a nice production with some quality touches
but little besides the visual imagery to make it memorable. Disappointedly,
I give it a low +1 on the -4 to +4 scale or 5/10.
Mark R. Leeper
Copyright 2005 Mark R. Leeper 
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