Spielberg remade War of the Worlds last year and I didn't see it. Then it got nominated for 3 oscars, so I saw it. It opens with a shot of Tom Cruise as Ray Ferrier operating a crane on dock overlooking New York City. His boss asks him to work an extra shift, but he just walks off. Oh good, another Tom Cruise cocky asshole character. Cut to a Mustang driving way too fast through the streets. Yep, cocky asshole. He gets home and we see that his ex-wife (Miranda Otto) is there to drop off the kids for the weekend. Robbie (Justin Chatwin) is a teenager who hates his father and Rachel (Dakota Fanning) is the 10 year-old going on 40. No really, we learn she has a bad back even though she does yoga. Learn is probably too strong a term, as both of these facts are mentioned once in passing and never revisited. To remind us that this was directed by Steven Spielberg, the dropoff scene has an odd soft back lighting on the street behind his ex-wife. This seems to be for no reason than to say to say, look what I can do.
Cruise quickly ignores his kids. There's no food in the house so he tells them to order out, he's going to sleep. Rachel of course orders organic health food and Ray it turns out has no idea what hummus is. I was thrilled to hear Rachel suggest that Ray get TiVo nice plug there. But I was annoyed to hear him say he couldn't afford it when we see he has a large TV, several stereo components, a game console and an expensive cell phone. I guess Tivo should have spent more for product placement. Anyway, in the background during this meet-the-characters time we hear about an odd storm overseas that was accompanied by an EMP. If you're attentive enough to listen to the background, you're rewarded with foreshadowing. If you're not, don't worry, it's about to happen here. Everyone goes outside to see a freakish lightening storm. Ray knows it's odd because the wind is blowing away from the storm, as if he would know this trvial fact about wind. Then New Jersey gets the EMP so all the cars stop.
Our ten minutes of opening pleasantries are up, time for a destructive set piece. It turns out, just around the corner lightening has struck 26 times in the same place, so Cruise goes to investigate. Here we're treated to another useless observation. He picks up a piece of asphault from the site, someone asks if it's hot, he says no it's freezing cold. Nothing is ever mentioned about this again. The earth starts cracking and the (classic) alien tripod rises from the ground and starts destroying things. Death rays beam out from it, turning people to dust so that their outer clothing is left blowing in the wind. This is PG-13 so apparently their undergarments turn to dust too. Ray makes it home, gathers the family and prepares to leave. We hear how packing food will be difficult since Ray doesn't have any, wink wink, but that's ok, no one ever gets hungry in the rest of the movie. Ray finds the only working car and they begin their drive. Where? To Boston because that's where mom is. They make it pretty far since the EMP stopped the other cars on the road in a convenient pattern that Ray can slalom. Apparently EMPs prevent gridlock too. The aliens are right on their tails, and the talented Miss Fanning spends the rest of the film screaming.
We follow this family in their flight, they have several other run ins with the aliens and with angry mobs. One mob behaves like a group of henchmen in a Bruce Lee film, each attacking one at a time, you know, just like a mob wouldn't. This theme is picked up again when light reflects off a river into Rachel's face, in exactly the way light from a river wouldn't. Cruise drives the car slowly through a mob, with the people moving out of the way, just like they wouldn't. Let's say you're a ferry boat captain, with death and destruction is on it's way, do you wait to bring up the ramp before leaving?
All right, I could keep this up throughout the whole film, but you hopefully get the point by now. The thing I haven't mentioned yet is that parts of this film are genuinely thrilling. I'm not sure about frightening but the destruction is presented from the point of view of the common man, not some Rambo-like super soldier, and that's effective. Our heroes are helpless as aliens exterminate mankind. Speilberg made Jaws, Poltergeist, Schindler's List and Saving Private Ryan, he knows how to push the audience's buttons. You'll catch little references to E.T., Jurrasic Park, and Minority Report as well. Every Sci-Fi geek knows the ending, but if you don't, I think the focus of this film detracts from it. The point of it all seems to be enjoy some popcorn and get your thrills at these thrilling scenes. This was a summer film, and it's better than most of the crap that passes for a summer action flick, but it's also Spielberg stepping down a bit to make merely summer action flick. Too bad.
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