MOVIE REVIEWS
War of the Worlds
Amichai Greene
There are some stories that, no matter how many times we hear them, never get old. Oddly enough many of these seem to be horror stories, King Kong, Godzilla, Dracula, The Mummy, movies that seem to be remade every five to fifteen years. A classic that has been through many incarnations is of course War of the Worlds. The novel by H.G. Wells is required reading for most teenagers, and every communications major out there was forced to sit through Orson Wells radio adaptation, which scared half the country into actually believing we were under attack by alien invaders from Mars. And if you’ve never seen the 1950’s film adaptation ask your parents, chances are they have. Which leads my to my point, what does this adaptation bring that we haven’t seen or heard before?
Unfortunately, not much. Allusions to terrorism aside (that of the “alien sleeper cells” and a downed commercial airplane, I’ll get to in a moment) there isn’t much that really holds this movie out from any other. David Keopp, the screenwriter, said he sat down to write this film trying to keep out any alien invader movie clichés – no scientists, military men, presidents, and such occupy any of the lead roles, no destruction of any famous national or international landmarks. It’s just the story of one man trying to save his family as the alien war goes on all around him. And to be honest, that’s a really original idea, or it would have been had M. Night Shyamalan not done it first with his film Signs. Just an aside, in Shyamalan’s film water is also the key to their demise, hmmm? I know the H.G. Wells novel came out first but it makes you think, doesn’t it?
Unlike Signs, War of the Worlds doesn’t have any endearing characters. As a father figure Tom Cruise’s character “Ray” is just a jerk. And it’s not Tom’s fault. It’s the way the character was written for him. Sure his character loves his kids, he’s just really bad at showing it (and he never really gets good at it, but we shouldn’t be concerned with such things as character arch, should we?). And let’s talk about the kids. Ray’s son Robbie, played by Justin Chatwin, is stereotypically rebellious and has a hard on for the military. His character is so unimportant that when he disappears from the plot I didn’t miss him in the least. Rachel, Ray’s daughter, played by the eerily uber talented wonder kid Dakota Fanning, is typical of he sort of over neurotic, smart, precocious kids Hollywood loves putting in movies. To her benefit, Dakota does an excellent job of making this character engaging, and does the amazing job of being the only character that reacts in a wholly believable fashion.
If I were to rename this film I would call it, “The Luckiest Man in the World” because at its center, Tom Cruise’s character is the luckiest bastard to ever walk the face of the planet. He is the ultimate victim of circumstances, and everything seems to be going his way. When the Aliens attack he manages to get the only working car in all of New York. When the ferry he’s trying to get on closes its doors he’s let on anyway. When he’s trapped by the aliens, after many people get sucked away and no one helps, he is the one everyone in the cage tries to save. When he’s running away from a fight the only people -amongst a throng of other fleeing civilians – who spot and are welcomed by crazy survivalist Tim Robbins (who coincidentally plays a crazy survivalist in the film too) are Tom Cruise and Dakota Fanning. None of his choices are relevant as the situations open their arms yelling out: “Don’t worry, you’re Tom Cruise, nothing can hurt you.”
Now on to the most annoying part, the part that people can’t seem to shut-up about: implications of terrorism. I’ll start with the second big image; that of a fallen commercial airplane. Whether or not it was intentional, and for some reason I don’t think it was, this image did make me shudder, flashing back to images of the burning Pentagon. For the rest of my life, and presumably everyone else who watched the events of 9/11 occur either live or live on TV, any image of a fallen airplane will carry such connotations. Now onto the first, the one that’s been mentioned by everyone who has reviewed this film so far: the “alien sleeper cells” hidden under the earth for millions of years waiting to strike. Obviously in a culture (our current one in fact) where the government is keeping its citizens in a shroud of fear, always waiting for some crazy olive skinned suburbanite to kill millions, the link will be made. The big difference: terrorists don’t have the army or technology or even the right amount of organization to occupy America. In addition, I still don’t understand, if the aliens have been underground since before mankind, why didn’t they just take over the world then, what the hell was the point in waiting so long? The link is tenuous at best and creates a plot hole big enough to pilot on of the aliens Tripods through.
Over all the only cheer I heard while watching the film was when Justin Chatwin’s character donned a Boston Red Sox baseball cap in the beginning in defiance to his father’s Yankees cap. Keep in mind I saw the film in a theater right across from the Commons in downtown Boston. And if I really wanted to spend money listening people cheer the Red Sox I’d buy a ticket to Fenway and see a Red Sox game with my friends. That at least would have been exciting.
