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Wednesday, July 6, 2005 | ||
What do you think of this story? Bad Links? | War of the Worlds: Weapon of Mass DistractionThe stories about Tom Cruise and his love affair with Katie Holmes and his battle with Brooke Shields and Matt Lauer about anti-depressants have been flooding the media for months now. The deluge appeared that it would threaten to overshadow Cruises film War of the Worlds. This did not happen. War of the Worlds is ultimately a Steven Spielberg film and it will rank among some of his best work. The story focuses on Ray Ferrier (Cruise), a sort of deadbeat dad, who has to watch his teenage son and 10 year old daughter for the weekend. Soon after their arrival, a strange lightning storm hits his small New Jersey town and when all cars stop dead in their tracks, Ferrier, like his neighbors, goes out to investigate. What they find is a hole and soon a large machine emerges from the hole and starts blasting everything in its way. It is something from out of this world and Ferrier races back to his kids and tries to find a way out of town. War of the Worlds is no Independence Day. The movie isnt about the war between humans and aliens as much as it is about a father trying to keep his family safe as the world around them falls apart. There are no big battle scenes between the armies of humans and aliens. Instead, Spielberg hopes that the audience will rely on their imagination to determine what the big battles would look like. This is not to say that there arent enormous and intense scenes of destruction. Cars flip, buildings crumble and humans get vaporized at a rapid clip. For much of the film it appears that humans have no hope of stopping the alien invaders. One character sums it up best when he states, This isnt a war, its an extermination. Spielberg shows off his genius with this film. Like Jaws, its a movie more about people than the creatures that threaten them from below. There are dozens of scenes that are charged with fast-paced action and an extended scene in a basement is full of as much creepy tension as any horror movie ever filmed. Spielberg also ties the horrors of his film to the terror of 9/11, with glimpses of missing signs populating walls throughout the film and many of the survivors of the attacks being covered in a film of dust. Dakota Fannings Rachel even asks her father at one point if they are being attacked by the terrorists. By grounding the fantastic into a very real sense of horror and dread, the film achieves a larger impact than most summer movies. The performances here are all top notch, especially Cruise, who proves once again why he is the largest box office draw right now. While some argue that Cruise always plays Cruise, he has shown in his last several pictures to be able to be quite an unlikable character. This makes watching his characters redemption in this film more fulfilling. War of the Worlds isnt perfect. The ending is a little pat and there is one noticeable mistake early on. As the lightning hits, all of the electronic gadgets are rendered useless. O.K., fine, but then why do a hand held video camera and a digital camera work minutes later? Not a huge flaw but it still takes you out of the moment. This is a great summer blockbuster though from the man who seemed to create the great summer blockbusters. War of the Worlds is a lot of fun but it is also capable of being thought-provoking and a bit creepy. Enjoy.
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