2005 / 116 Minutes / PG-13
Reviewed by Dale Nauertz

“This is only a war as much as there’s a war between us and maggots. This is extermination.”

“War of the Worlds” is the alien invasion film I’ve always wanted to see.even if I had never realized it. It’s the only one that really takes the whole notion seriously and plays it as straight as it should be played. Director Steven Spielberg has nicely eschewed all of the trappings that usually adorn such a premise. Gone are the shots of world leaders staring at screens of spaceships and saying things like “My God”. Gone are the dozens of main characters who are meant to show us the whole invasion from a multitude of different viewpoints, thus spreading and dissipating our emotional investment and giving us, instead of a few well defined characters, a lot of boring and sloppily written ones. Gone is the usual plotline of a few plucky heroes rising up and saving the day, finding a cheesy way to destroy the aliens (like, oh, shall we say a computer virus). “War of the Worlds” is the story of 1930’s Europe, except that it is set in America and has replaced the Nazis with a race of aliens. After seeing this film, I think I know why so many Americans were freaked out by that infamous Orson Welles radio play of the same material back in 1939.

The plot is simple. What if aliens visited Earth.and didn’t want us around? What if they staged a complete takeover with an army of nearly impenetrable war machines, vaporizing us and destroying every mark that we ever existed? How would you react? What would you do? And where the hell would you go? This is what happens to Tom Cruise, a machine-operator on the dockyards of the Jersey shore. After a freakish lightning storm, Cruise witnesses an attack by alien forces mere blocks from his house. After taking the only working car (why this car works when the others does not is never adequately explained.something about the solenoids, but still.you’d think a couple of other cars would still function) he decides to take his children (Dakota Fanning and Justin Chatwin) to his estranged wife’s family in Boston. He does this simply because he has no idea what else to do. He is not a fighter. He doesn’t even know if there is a way to bring these aliens down. His son longs to fight against these creatures. Cruise just wants to survive.

Thus, unlike most films of this nature which are about a small group of people defending their turf against alien invasion and doing whatever they can to kick alien ass, this is more of an Anne Frank version of alien invasion. Our heroes hide in basements, run for their lives, and do whatever it takes to keep themselves alive in very dire circumstances. In short, Cruise and his family do what you or I would likely do in the same situation, and that is what makes the film so riveting, and what puts it head and shoulders above any film of this type ever made.

Spielberg has made such a variety of films that it’s almost like there are several different Spielbergs. For example, the Spielberg who made “Hook” doesn’t seem to have a lot in common with the one that made “Schindler’s List”. The Spielberg that made “Jaws” doesn’t superficially share a lot of common ground with the man who made “The Terminal”. (Though, after seeing “Sugarland Express”, it’s easy to see where the guy who made “Catch Me if You Can” came from.) And the guy who made “War of the Worlds” doesn’t seem to be the same guy who gave us the aliens in “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” or “E.T.” This film was made by the Steve who brought us “Saving Private Ryan”, “Schindler’s List” and “Jaws”. The Spielberg behind the camera on this film is a man capable of dark, brutal and yet ultimately human stories that don’t sugarcoat anything and certainly don’t soft pedal.

It’s hardly surprising that a director with Spielberg’s craft and talent could craft the finest alien invasion film I’ve ever seen (not that that’s saying much considering such competitors as “Independence Day”). What is surprising, however, is how dark, brutal and intense this film manages to be. There are moments in this film eerily reminiscent of the 9/11 attacks or, as I mentioned earlier, the invasion of Poland during World War Two. There are people covered in ash that was once other human beings. There are posters asking if people have seen missing loved ones. There are major metropolitan areas reduced to nothing more than disturbingly realistic rubble. And there are many other moments of chilling power, both visual and story-wise. The sight of the alien tripods looming over a small city, for example, and reducing it to dust with blasts from its lasers against the backdrop of the night sky is an image that I believe is forever seared into the tissue of my brain. More than a couple moments of this film reminded me of the similarly creepy “Signs” by M. Night Shyamalan: a group of people hiding from aliens in a basement, for example, and the fact that the story of this otherworldly occupation is told from the tight point of view of a single family rather than the messy viewpoints of dozens of people. But whereas Shyamalan’s film is ultimately about the power of faith, Spielberg is playing with the entire canvas of human emotion here. This film is much more of an epic than the other, and the aliens are a lot more destructive.

Moments of the film also reminded me of George A. Romero’s work. Romero uses his zombie invasions as a catalyst to explore human nature, specifically the survival instincts of human beings. Spielberg does the same thing, only to greater effect (sorry, George). Even when the aliens are nowhere to be found, the tension of this film is often unbearable. After all, humans are fascinating and flawed beings that have some strange ways of acting once panic sets in and all the usual rules get tossed out the window.

It helps that the aliens in this invasion are, by far, the creepiest ever caught on cinema. We barely get a glimpse of them and, when we do, they fit the standard alien template. They look sort of like a cross between an alien and a predator, only with softer, almost cute facial features. So it isn’t their appearance that raises the hair on your forearms (we don’t even get a look at them until three-quarters of the way into the movie), it’s the sheer impossibility of reasoning with them or even killing them. Their machines are immense, damned near unstoppable and capable of catastrophic power, and the mysterious nature of their motives is very unnerving. I can’t remember previously watching a summer movie where I was so sure that the human race was going to lose. Steve might be renowned for such commodities as hope and warmth in his other films, but there’s precious little of that in evidence here. That makes the human moments between Cruise and Dakota Fanning even more touching. This is the essence of humanity (complicated and distant as their relationship may be). This is what we’re praying the aliens are unable to destroy. If these scenes hadn’t worked, the movie wouldn’t have crawled so deeply under my skin. But the acting and writing and direction of these scenes, and pretty much every scene, is damn near flawless. Steve is a great, great director and he’s at his finest here. Everyone involved in this film seems to have brought their A game to the table. The special effects are phenomenal, but since this is Spielberg we’re talking about, that goes without saying. The acting is great (with Tom Cruise and Tim Robbins doing especially good work). The writing by David Koepp (who I believe should get a crown as Hollywood’s Golden Hack) and Josh Friedman is pulse pounding and natural.

The movie is not, however, without a couple of small problems. As I said, the aliens (when we see them) don’t look terribly original. There are a couple inconsistencies with the plot (a wristwatch has been stopped, but a camcorder still works? The Hell?) and the ending does go a little soft. Then again, compared to the rest of the movie, almost anything might have seemed soft. This is a very hard-edged movie, and definitely not the sort of flick you expect to stumble upon in the midst of summer, when idiocy usually rules the day. It’s too dark, too well-made, too richly nuanced and observant to be a typical summer film. It’s too disturbing to work as a fun, popcorn flick.

If you’re looking for a great ride, you might be disappointed. If you’re looking for a great film, you certainly will not be.

This entry was posted on Friday, July 1st, 2005 at 2:23 pm and is filed under Dale's Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.