I saw the “War of The Worlds” today. The movie was pretty good although not perfect. It may be unnecessary to tell what the story is about since anyone who has read H.G. Wells’s short story by the very same name knows the basic plot of the movie.
Spielberg does not follow Wells version in a verbatim like fashion just like the 1953 version didn’t and couldn’t. Wells wrote his story in the late 1890s so things cannot be exactly the same.
It is amazing how this story of Martians attacking earth has stood the test of time, but that is one of the criteria for a classic according to those in academia.
“War of the Worlds” is a classic in my view. If you can borrow the book from the library I highly recommend it. It is a quick and exciting read.
If you’re a science-fiction lover I’m positive you’ll enjoy the book. I am also positive you will like Spielberg’s film version that is based on the Well’s story.
Unlike the 1953 version of “War of the Worlds” this one is told from the perspective of one lower/middle middle class family.
Tom Cruise plays a divorced dad who works on the Jersey docks. He gets off work to find his former wife and her new beau dropping off his son and daughter as they plan to take a trip to the parent’s house in Boston.
A weird thunderstorm signals the arrival of the aliens (original idea) and the beginning of the destruction of mankind and the conquest of earth.
The story remains focused on the father, son and daughter (Dakota Fanning) as they seek to escape the rampaging aliens and avoid the hysterical fleeing masses.
There are things I didn’t like about Spielberg’s version of this story and one problem is the perspective the story is told from. By telling the story from the experiences of one single family we miss out on the broader picture. We don’t know how the government is responding to this invasion except for brief stumblings upon one large alien/military battle, military convoys and police. What is the President doing? What are the plans and strategies of the military? What are government officials and scientist called on to deal with this threat doing (the 1953 version told the story from the perspective of the military and scientist and showed the broad destruction created by the aliens)?
A lot of science fiction is told from multiple perspectives of multiple groups of people (sets of families or sets of individuals for instance). This one seems to be tightly locked on one family while only briefly bringing other people and one other family into the picture.
As an audience member I found myself wanting to know more. I wanted to see more of the destruction of cities. I wanted to know more about how the government was responding to the crisis.
From the situation around the family we can tell that the government was responding poorly and insufficiently, but I just wanted to see more.
When you see the special effects you’ll know why. They are some of the best I’ve seen. They are very realistic and raise the grade of the film in my view. The special effects are realistic, but too brief. I guess the cost were prohibitive.
The plan of attack of the aliens in this movie is also unique. Spielberg scores a few more points for some originality in this retold story. It is always good to see a director (or should I credit the screen writer?) add something original to a tale that has been told before.
Spielberg was kind of minimalist when it came to sound. The tripods do make a unique sound and the ray canon has a good sound (although I liked the sound of the ray canon and pulse blast from the 1953 version better), but I think the movie could have used more of a musical score. It’s like Spielberg went the minimalist route like Hitchcock did in the movie “The Birds” (A grade).
In “The Birds” Hitchcock used the background sounds of the environment (especially the birds) to help tell his story. It is said he did this because a critic once remarked that the only reason his movies were scary was because of the score. He proved the critic wrong of course.
Spielberg’s “War of The Worlds” could have used more sound to produce more tension in my opinion.
The pacing of the story wasn’t much to my liking either. I wasn’t totally absorbed into the story. The analyzing side of the brain was still completely engaged. In other words, I didn’t feel as if I dwelled within the story. I felt like a person looking in instead of a person engrossed by the story.
I like the fact that Spielberg used some elements of the story that were not used in the 1953 version. He went back to the tripods from the original story, which became spaceships in the 1953 version and it seems like in honor of the radio broadcast of “War of the Worlds” Spielberg had most of the action taking place in New Jersey. I liked both of these touches.
I think the War Of The Worlds is worth a trip to the theater, plus popcorn and a soda if only for the very good and realistic looking special effects. The story as told by Spielberg is limited but good. I give the movie a grade of B.