WAR OF THE WORLDS(2005)With Tom Cruise, Dakota Fanning, Tim Robbins Directed by Steven Spielberg Reviewed by JB |
In the last few years,
Steven Spielberg has offered us some praiseworthy if sometimes flawed
movies such as SAVING PRIVATE RYAN, MINORITY REPORT, A.I., CATCH ME IF
YOU CAN and THE TERMINAL. WAR OF THE WORLDS, properly done, could have
topped them all, but turned out to be the poorest film Spielberg has
directed in quite some time.
For a Spielberg film, WAR OF THE WORLDS is
much too
derivative of other
movies, including past Spielberg successes. A prime example is
the scene featuring the
probing "seeing
eye" tentacle of the Martians, searching for human survivors in a
basement. It starts out as a nod to the 1953 movie of the
story, but Spielberg can't leave the sequence
alone. Within minutes, it becomes just another version of
the kids versus the dinosaurs in JURASSIC PARK. Mass destruction
on a ferry
instantly recalls more exciting action on a larger scale from James
Cameron's TITANIC. Hiding in a basement while creatures slink all
around the house? M. Knight Shyamalan's SIGNS. The Martians
themselves, outside of their tripods? First
cousins of the broad-headed creatures from INDEPENDENCE DAY. Even
the initial arrival of the aliens recalls the colored lights in
the clouds of Spielberg's outstanding CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD
KIND. I was half-waiting for Dakota Fanning to jump on a bicycle
with an alien and fly past a full moon in silhouette sometime during
the film.
The attack sequences are well done, but there
is never any counterpoint. Twenty minutes into the film, they
attack, and
Tom Cruise and family go on the lam. Then, like clockwork,
there is a new attack every
twenty minutes. They are all
spectacularly staged, but what happens in between the attacks in never
very
involving because there is no plot to move along. It is
just a series of explosions and vaporizations in which humans are
helpless to do anything but run, and then there is twenty minutes of
down time. A visit with a gun-happy moron played by Tim
Robbins doesn't help matters.
After the fall of the Martians, which just
suddenly occurs an hour and forty-five minutes into the film and has to
be explained later by the
narrator (Morgan "Call Me Ubiquitous" Freeman), Spielberg tacks on a
cheap, feel-good ending that
smells of audience test cards, focus grouping and/or corporate
happy-think. Spielberg's had warm, fuzzy endings before, but
never one this insulting to its audience.
There was a huge pre-release buildup to WAR OF
THE WORLDS,
including Tom Cruise revealing in various TV venues that he is truly
nuttier
than a case of Snickers Bars. And it opened well to mixed but generally
favorable reviews. Then soon after,
THE FANTASTIC FOUR hit the theaters, took the number one spot (the only
measure of Hollywood success these days) and WAR OF THE WORLDS
was quickly
forgotten about. There was once a time when JAWS or CLOSE
ENCOUNTERS had everybody talking all summer. Now Spielberg
films are trumped by Jessica Alba in a skintight jumpsuit.
Welcome to the new era of disposable blockbusters, where even a
Spielberg film is just another product to be consumed and forgotten. ½ -
JB
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