Posted on 06/29/2005 6:02:40 PM PDT by zook
Alien Reality It takes you there, and makes you feel it.
I didn’t think it was possible to make movies like this any more. War of the Worlds is an almost perfectly realized movie of the classic aliens-attack type: satisfying, believable, and very, very scary. It comes so close to perfection that a long list of accolades are going to have to be cleared out of the way before we get around to that “almost.”
Ray Ferrier, a dockworker, has just gotten charge of his kids for the weekend, as his ex-wife and her new husband head off for a weekend at her mom’s. The teenaged son, Robbie (Justin Chatwin), is resentful and rude; the ten-year-old daughter, Rachel (Dakota Fanning), is a bit too world-weary for someone still carrying plastic ponies around. (After Ray blows up at Robbie she informs her dad, “You’re never going to get through to him that way.”)
We get a couple of hints from an overheard news broadcast that somewhere in “the Ukraine” (didn’t they drop the “the” years ago?) there have been solar flares and power outages. But then a curious thing starts to happen in the local neighborhood. Ray is exhilarated to watch a gusty whirl of gray in the sky, which pulls the wind toward it and sends all the backyard laundry flapping. “It’s like the Fourth of July!” he tells Rachel; she, quite sensibly scared, replies, “No, it isn’t.”
That’s the last time anything in this movie is remotely normal. As the extent of the alien attack becomes increasingly apparent, the situation shoots to the level of hopeless and stays there. Ray’s goal becomes simply to get his children safely back to their mother. Rather than unfolding a storyline, it is a series of harrowing experiences, one after another. Which is, truthfully, what living something like this would be like.
That’s most impressive thing about what director Steven Spielberg has done here: This crazy story about space aliens destroying the earth is so realistic. We never know anything more than what Ray knows, and he doesn’t know much. Decisions are as agonizing and unclear to us as they are to him. He trudges day after day, exhausted and filthy, and we too feel the interminable and hopeless nature of his quest. In its own way, War of the Worlds is like the harrowing first 20 minutes of “Saving Private Ryan” (of which Spielberg was producer). It takes you there, and makes you feel it.
When Ray walks past a wall adorned, as Manhattan was after September 11, with notices begging for help in locating lost relatives, we think, “Yes, that’s what it would be like.” When Rachel and her dad argue over her need to have privacy for a roadside potty break, and his need to have her never out of his sight, we know that’s just the kind of thing that would happen. When they encounter people along the way who are kind, or who are suddenly and alarmingly vicious, or who are something strangely in-between (a great performance by Tim Robbins), we know we would meet that range of characters too.
Steven Spielberg has wisely located the power of this story, not in the size of the aliens or their destructive powers, but in how such threats would make us feel. Other directors trust the effects to be big and noisy enough to elicit these emotions, but Spielberg has set his sights on the subjective, experiential feel of the story itself. It’s a terrible temptation that now, with computer images, there are no limits to special effects; you can make an explosion 30-feet high, or 300, or more, so why not go for the biggest bang you can get for the buck? But a super-size wowzer like that becomes a distraction, breaking the bounds of the story and taking on separate existence as a mere object of gawking. Spielberg tames the effects and makes them serve the story. By exercising restraint he manages to make even a movie about invading aliens, in some sense, realistic.
Only “almost” perfect? The ending is a little sweeter than it needed to be, and a little clunky for that, but it’s not a serious flaw. If anything, Spielberg’s pursuit of “you are there” realism is too relentless. He wisely forgoes scenes that would constitute “comic relief,” but also gives us little in the way of character development, and nothing truly develops in the plot. The misery and anxiety-saturated atmosphere is so endless that we never get a break — no moments of hope or beauty, that would give us a breather. Halfway through the movie I scribbled this note: “Along about here I got tired of being scared.” I was tired of being at this pitch of tension for so long, tired of worrying about these people, and not knowing what horrific thing would happen next. But real life wouldn’t give us a break, and Spielberg doesn’t either. Few movies about flying saucers and bug-eyed aliens tell us such true things about human nature. War of the Worlds sets a new standard for space-age classics; it’s in a universe of its own.
— Frederica Mathewes-Green writes regularly for NPR's Morning Edition, Beliefnet.com, Christianity Today, and other publications. She is the author of Gender: Men, Women, Sex and Feminism, among other books.
You bet. I have that from Gutenberg and a bunch more. I set my laptop to "scroll up" and read when I am flying or in the boring parts of meetings. If I convert to pdf, Acrobat Reader 7 will "speak" the text in my earbuds.
WOTW is a great story, as good as The Chrysalids IMO.
Speaking of Spielberg, Brian Aldis's Supertoys Last All Summer Long is also online. It's the basis of AI, along with Pinocchio, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, and bits of the literary version of Peter Pan. If you have at least Supertoys and Frankenstein under your belt the movie is much more comprehensible. For me, AI was a superb film that touched on several deep topics, as did Frankenstein.
AI and Minority Report are both underrated, especially AI.
I'll see WOTW this weekend maybe.. Hopefully it's good.
Artificial Intelligence.
The kid from Sixth Sense plus Jude Law.
I liked it. That kid is very talented. The movie is rather, what's the word- stylized. Great cinematography.
If you haven't seen it, rent it. It's one of those movies you should just see no matter what the reviews.
One of my all-time favorite books. I just bought my 12-year-old a copy, and I'm happy to say she's enjoying it. An interesting cultural note: I was afraid she -- being a typical kid into the Lindsay Lohan / lite rap world -- wouldn't take to the prose, but apparently Harry Potter and Limony Snicket have made Wells digestible for her. Conan Doyle, too. That's a happy thing.
Stands for A.I. (Artificial Intelligence) Based on a short story that Stanley Kubrick puzzled over for years to turn into a film. (I forget the author of the short story.) Spielberg took up the challenge from Kubrick to turn the short story into a movie which premiered 2? 3? years ago.
Universally derided, I actually liked it.
I hope Faraday does not mind my answering for him.
AI is a science fiction film set in a future Earth. It's possible to make autonomous humanoid robots, 'mekkas. They are used as servants, workers, and sex toys. They get smarter and smarter and more capable.
So why not create one that looks like a nine or ten tear old boy, that is programmed to love one person forever?
The story is about the beta version and the woman who imprinted the 'mekka, who was replacing a severely ill son. Uh Oh, the real son gets better, but the 'mekka is still irreversibly imprinted on the mom.
Mary Shelley posed the question, what if a man created an artificial man, but the creation was so ugly and revolting that even his creator could not stand it, but recoiled in horror and revulsion?
AI asks, what if the monster was cute and programmed to love? Would real people love it back?
There's more to it, and rather than try to be a reviewer, I'll suggest that you read some reviews. Lots of folks did not care for the film at all. I did, but I ain't no Siskel and Ebert.
It gets lots of things right, but the story is incomplete. All three of us just sat there at the end feeling unsatisfied. As an aside, The "big name" star was just OK. Little girl stole the show.
And I'll keep repeating how moronic this film is
Saw it at 2PM EST and I realize it's still with me past 10:30PM.
You will emerge from the theater a changed person. Your mind will have evolved to the next level. For the following three days you will be confused about what you are doing here on this planet. You will be asking yourself, "What is my mission here on earth?" Not to worry. The condition is not permanent. It is easily cured by a few beers with friends at your local tavern.
i wonder when hollywood figures out that their stars' bad behavior is reflected in box office receipts.
i wanted to see "cinderella man," which sounds like a perfect family film, but russell crowe's behavior just made me SICK. you would think he wouldn't want to alienate his target audience....families.
I liked Minority Report. Based on a PK Dick story, I think, and the Dickian paranoiac twistedness shone through.
Another Dick movie was Screamers I and II- cheezy, but clearly related to the short story "Second Variety"
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.This reviewer did not pay attention to the movie... the train's "bright lights" were FLAMES coming out of every passenger window as the runaway train roared past the people standing by the crossing at a speed far higher than normal. It was a train coming from hell, heading toward disaster.
My pardner had a choice of Herbie or War, he says he should have good seen Herbie and he is a SciFi nut.
I love SciFi, but will admint that some is POS, he rarely finds any bad SciFi.
Must check - is it true that Ann Robinson from the 1953 film also appears?
I watched the 1953 version again instead - flaws and all, it's still great. I never drive by the LA city hall without thinking how good it looks despite being blown up by the Martians all those years ago!
We just saw it this afternoon. It really was a good movie!! As flaky as Tom Cruise may be, he acted well in this one.
"By the way, Gene Barry has a cameo."
Ooh, where was it? I was thinking it would be a great link to the older film but I don't know what Gene Barry looks like after fifty years.
Where was he in the movie?
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