War of the Worlds

From AwardAnnals

Reviews

Amazon.com

Despite super effects, a huge budget, and the cinematic pedigree of alien-happy Steven Spielberg, this take on H.G. Wells’s novel is basically a horror film packaged as a sci-fi thrill ride. Instead of a mad slasher, however, Spielberg (along with writers Josh Friedman & David Koepp) utilizes aliens hell-bent on quickly destroying humanity, and the terrifying results that prey upon adult fears, especially in the post-9/11 world. The realistic results could be a new genre, the grim popcorn thriller; often you feel like you’re watching Schindler’s List more than Spielberg’s other thrill-machine movies (Jaws, Jurassic Park). The film centers on Ray Ferrier, a divorced father (Tom Cruise, oh so comfortable) who witnesses one giant craft destroy his New Jersey town and soon is on the road with his teen son (Justin Chatwin) and preteen daughter (Dakota Fanning) in tow, trying to keep ahead of the invasion. The film is, of course, impeccably designed and produced by Spielberg’s usual crew of A-class talent. The aliens are genuinely scary, even when the film—like the novel—spends a good chunk of time in a basement. Readers of the book (or viewers of the deft 1953 adaptation) will note the variation of how the aliens come to Earth, which poses some logistical problems. The film opens and closes with narration from the novel read by Morgan Freeman, but Spielberg could have adapted Orson Welles’s words from the famous Halloween Eve 1938 radio broadcast: “We couldn’t soap all your windows and steal all your garden gates by tomorrow night, so we did the best next thing: we annihilated the world.” —Doug Thomas

Barnes and Noble

An updated and very loose adaptation of the influential science fiction novel by H. G. Wells, this visually sumptuous film directed by Steven Spielberg not only has the apocalyptic scope one would expect but also focuses on individual human emotion in a way that makes the horror and terror more readily comprehensible. Tom Cruise portrays a divorced New Jersey dockworker whose upwardly mobile ex-wife (Miranda Otto) gives him weekend custody of their two children (Dakota Fanning and Justin Chatwin) and heads for Boston. Hours later, alien invaders who have been hiding underground in mammoth machines of war begin to surface and set out to obliterate Earth. The bulk of the film is devoted to Cruise and his kids’ flight from his working-class neighborhood—the site of one such alien unearthing—with the previously irresponsible parent instinctively rising to the challenge of protecting his offspring. The effects astound, as one expects in a Spielberg film; and the Josh Friedman-David Koepp screenplay offers some very powerful sequences, which the director realizes with his trademark precision and emotional clarity. Perhaps the most striking subplot involves father and daughter, who seek temporary refuge in the home of a quietly deranged man (exceptionally well played by Tim Robbins) who may also be a pedophile. This brief, uneasy respite comes to a startling end when an alien patrol combs the dwelling for survivors; the masterful handling of this lengthy, almost wordless sequence leaves no doubt that Spielberg was just the right guy to direct the film. It’s an impressive motion picture in every respect, made with extraordinary attention to detail and utterly, shockingly realistic in its depiction of an Earth laid waste by alien invaders. For sci-fi fans, it’s a not-to-be-missed item that sacrifices none of its effectiveness by being shrunken to the dimensions of a TV screen. Ed Hulse