Posted on 06/29/2005 6:02:40 PM PDT by zook
Really? Thanx
I've read quite a few different opinions. Have you seen it?
Saw it today with wife and daughter and we all loved it. We walked out of the theater amazed, chuckling nervously as we talked, and talked about it all the way home. When we got home we started calling friends about it. That's the kind of movie it was for us.
A better review (http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/entertainment/movies/12006990.htm):
It turns out, it's not the end of the world. You just wish it were by the end of the movie.
(I love this next line!)
"War of the Worlds" is a picture without a thought in its pretty head: the Tom Cruise movie to end all Tom Cruise movies.
(great, wasn't it?) :D
If we're lucky. The movie has nothing much to say about the shape the world is in, other than a few reflexive questions about whether the explosions that accompany the arrival of space invaders might actually be caused by "the terrorists."
Oh, them.
The last time somebody made this movie, its subtext was all about the Cold War. But the new version's closest brush with metaphor arrives as the movie dead-ends in Boston, when some pigeons land on one of the alien fighting ships near Faneuil Hall, apparently mistaking it for a statue of Paul Revere on horseback. Tom Cruise -- who never stops seeming exactly like Tom Cruise, even though his character has been given the unlikely name Ray -- gets very excited about this and tries to shout something to a soldier. But there's so much noise in the movie at all times that the soldier can't hear him, and neither can we. This gives you something to talk about as you exit the theater.
"War of the Worlds" is supposed to be about aliens who go stomping around the countryside on long-legged fighting platforms -- known instantly to everyone in the movie as Tripods -- that almost certainly are the least practical interplanetary attack vehicles ever devised. But the invaders are only there to provide a backdrop for the movie's seemingly endless tableaux of Tom Cruise -- Tom Cruise running for his life, Tom Cruise being bathed in the blood of others, Tom Cruise yelling at his movie kids like a guy who wishes he knew where to get his hands on some Ritalin.
The best science fiction movies are grounded in everyday life, as pictures such as "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" and "The Day the Earth Stood Still" ably demonstrate. But "War of the Worlds" operates at such a distant remove from reality that when the invasion turns hundreds of thousands of people into refugees, wandering across New Jersey, we don't see a single displaced dog among them. This is a movie so completely de-contextualized from real life that it makes you yearn nostalgically for the unreality TV of Cruise's recent rampage through the talk shows.
Director Steven Spielberg and writer David Koepp, who collaborated on "Jurassic Park," have updated the story and the special effects so completely that comparisons to the novel upon which the movie is based -- written by H.G. Wells in 1898 -- or the 1953 sci-fi picture by producer George Pal are pointless. Spielberg is more likely trying to create a visual analog to the historic radio broadcast by Orson Welles' Mercury Theatre on Oct. 30, 1938, but the astonishments that Welles conjured for the mind's eye have now been given the face of a cultural banality.
As you would expect, the movie is larded with visual effects that keep Ray and his children, Robbie and Rachel -- the Raylettes -- in constant peril. Spielberg makes the threat to the rest of the world seem real enough, but the story is told through the eyes of Cruise's character, and we know that he will remain in a protective bubble for the duration of the picture. With that realization, boom goes the dynamite of our illusions. And our fears.
The only really scary moments come when bad things threaten the life of 10-year-old Rachel, played by the 47-year-old child impersonator Dakota Fanning. In fact, the creepiest scene in "War of the Worlds" is also one of the quietest, and it comes when Spielberg allows his camera to linger on Fanning's face as she takes in a horrible sight.
There are other splendid images in the film, as when a train suddenly races by Ray and the army of darkness he has joined, making them all look up from their zombie-like trance in wonder at the train's bright lights.
There also is a long scene involving an alien probe with a face that makes him look like the misbehaving younger brother of E.T., the extraterrestrial. The probe is sent into a basement to search for humans, which is odd, because until then the invaders have simply been blasting buildings to bits, indiscriminately vaporizing everybody in them. When they come to the house where Ray is hiding with a loonyburgher played by Tim Robbins, suddenly they start going door to door like Amway salesmen.
Come to think of it, maybe it is the end of the world after all.
There's another HG Wells's War of the Worlds by Pendragon Films, an indie, that sticks to the Victorian story by Wells pretty faithfully.
The Spielberg version is a remake of the movie based on Orson Well's adaptation of H G's original.
I'm going to see the Pendragon film first, then maybe the Speilberg one when it comes out on DVD and I can watch it for free from the local library.
If you like scifi in a working class sort of way, you'll love this film. I'm already seeing reviews where people point to this flaw or that goof, sort of like Comic Book Guy on The Simpsons. But for me it was one of those "I'll never forget when I saw...." experiences.
Oh. well that's quite different.
Maybe I'd better wait and hear a few more reviews.
I've seen two versions of WotW. The Gene Barry version from the 50s and this one. Both are good, but I really recommend seeing this new one on the large screen in a theater with good sound. My wife and I were astounded and my daugher was terrified (in a good, healthy movie sort of way).
By the way, Gene Barry has a cameo.
A different review, not a better one. And I can't imagine what movie he was watching, because the one I watched was frightening all the way through.
The Pendragon version went straight to DVD, and the reviews are not encouraging:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0425638/usercomments
Well, I saw it at the first matinee this morning, and I was'nt impressed. The special effects were dazzling, but the story line left much to be desired. I think maybe I'm simply not a sci-fi fan.
Disney's Incredible Journey with people.
They have to have Morgan Freeman's narration to try explain what happened at the end.
Save your money and rent 1953's original film version. Much, much better
No one who sees the film will walk away with an anti-American view that they didn't walk in with. The film is tremendous. Boycot it if you like, if you don't want Spielberg to get your bucks, but there's no reason to do so on the basis of content.
I don't know why anyone would need Morgan Freeman's explanation in 2005 and not need Gene Barry's in 1953 (not sure of the original's release year).
I can't fathom the word "preposterous" applied to this film, but not to the 50s version.
Anyhow, I'm just going to keep repeating how much I loved it.
Steven Spielberg thanks you for your donation to Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.