Absolutely something, according to Spielberg.
Stephen Spielberg has done aliens before; benevolent creatures who spanned the gulf of the universe to eat Reese's Pieces and drive Richard Dreyfus nuts or make old people feel good. The aliens of
War of the Worlds
, however, have something else on their minds. Like death. And destruction.
Spielberg's film, as one might expect, plops a family drama on top of HG Welles' classic narrative. Ray Ferrier (Tom Cruise) is an absentee father who agrees to watch his two kids Robbie (Justin Chatwin) and Rachel (Dakota Fanning) when their mother (Miranda Otto)
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goes to Boston for the weekend. The Ferrier's dysfunction gets put on hold when a mysterious storm heralds the arrival of gigantic metallic tripods that burst from the ground and begin wreaking havoc on mankind.
Worlds
begins with Morgan Freeman narrating, reading verbatim from Welles' 1898 novel, but soon becomes a horror fest that is entirely 21st century. The hulking tripods fire rays which turn humans to dust and destroy anything in their path. Shots of people running and screaming in terror recall images of 9.11, a point Spielberg reinforces with images of missing persons signs plastered over the city and Rachel's question, "Is it the terrorists?"
After the invasion, the Ferrier family is on the run, in one predicament after another, with Spielberg managing to evoke every disaster movie ever made in the process. When they're not
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escaping rioters or sinking boats, the Ferriers witness gruesome images of bodies floating down a river, a speeding train engulfed in flames and human remains being drained of blood.
The director uses the violence effectively to build tension, however, injecting even the most clichéd action sequences with palpable suspense. But this maddening pitch begins to lose steam due to glaring plot holes and tepid performances.
Following a bloody crescendo, Spielberg reaches into his bag of schmaltz and gives us an ending that, considering the utter destruction of earth's cities and mankind's notion of its place in the universe, is disproportionately happy. It's icky stuff-especially considering the previous two hours' mayhem-but not enough to ruin the film. No matter what your political affiliation, this is one war we can all,
Rocky
style, get behind.
Worlds
is disturbing and clumsy, but so is a lot of other summer fun.
