Movie Review of The War of the Worlds
Every few years, Academy Award-winning director Steven Spielberg gives audiences a “two-fer” deal – one crowd-pleasing popcorn movie in the summer (think Jurassic Park), and a hard-hitting “serious” picture (Schindler’s List) in the winter “Oscar-campaign” season.
For audiences in 2005, the “crowd-pleaser” was War of the Worlds, a re-imagined adaptation of H.G. Wells’ 1898 novel about an alien invasion of the Earth. Starring Tom Cruise, Dakota Fanning, Justin Chatwin, Miranda Otto, and Tim Robbins, the film is both a study of a dysfunctional American family’s efforts to survive a major disaster and, incidentally, a blend of science fiction with commentary about society in a post-9/11 world. (The “serious” Spielberg film for the year was, of course, Munich.)
Writers David Koepp (Jurassic Park, Spider-Man) and Josh Friedman, along with Spielberg, decided to eschew most of the clichÃ?©s of the aliens-invade-Earth sub-genre of science fiction films and adopted Wells’ storytelling technique of focusing on just a few people caught up in this “war of the worlds.” Here, the spotlight is on New Jersey dockworker Ray Ferrier (Cruise), a forty-something divorced father whose relationship with his son Robbie (Chatwin) younger daughter (Fanning) and upper-crust ex-wife (Otto) is somewhat strained.
After a brief main title sequence and a voiceover (spoken by Morgan Freeman) based on the novel’s opening lines, we’re introduced to Ray just as he’s finishing his shift unloading huge containers from a freighter on a New Jersey dock. He’s pretty good at his job – so much so that his boss wants him to work overtime because “I’ve got half of Korea comin’ in this afternoon” – but he’s not exactly the most accommodating fellow, either. He rebuffs his supervisor by citing union regulations and saying he’s just worked for 12 hours. Ray is, as Koepp points out in the “making of” featurette on Disk Two of the Limited Edition DVD set, the dark side of every Tom Cruise character from the 1980s; imagine, if you will, “Maverick” Mitchell from Top Gun retired from the Navy and having to make a living as a working stiff, his cockiness somewhat diminished by a failed marriage and a rocky relationship with both his kids.
On the fateful day of the alien invasion, Ray arrives at his modest house to find his ex-wife Mary Ann, her new husband Tim (David Alan Basche), Robbie, and Rachel waiting outside. Tim and Mary Ann, who’s pregnant, are on their way to Boston to visit her parents, and Ray is “stuck” with Robbie and Rachel for the weekend.
The first 20 minutes of War of the Worlds delves into the relationship between Ray and his two kids. Robbie is sullen and at odds with Ray; when he gets out of Tim’s SUV he doesn’t even greet his father, and when he is cajoled to play “catch” with the “old man” for five minutes, Robbie deliberately wears a Boston Red Sox cap to emphasize how much he has grown apart from the Yankees-loving Ray. At one point in the father-son baseball-throwing contest, Robbie says, “You’re an a-hole. I hate coming here.”
This isn’t Father Knows Best, to be sure.
Rachel isn’t as cold toward Ray, but she’s not beyond asking for TiVo or showing her father how much of an emotional disconnect there is between them. When she tells him she has a splinter from his porch railing in her finger, Rachel refuses to let him take it out, and in the last instants of peace before the aliens make their spectacular arrival, she incurs her dad’s displeasure when she orders health food from a local restaurant.
Ray Ferrier: [takes a bite of food] What is that?
Rachel Ferrier: Hummus.
Ray Ferrier: Hummus?
Rachel Ferrier: Yeah, from the health food place, I kept a menu last time we were here.
Ray Ferrier: [just stares at her with anger]
Rachel Ferrier: …Well, you said order.
Ray Ferrier: …I meant order food.
Robbie, in the meantime, has taken advantage that Ray went to take a nap and grabbed the car (a Mustang) for an unauthorized spin. The news, delivered matter-of-factly by Rachel, comes just as what seems to be a thunderstorm looms in the New Jersey skies. Worried about his wayward son yet fascinated by the weird storm, Ray talks Rachel into watching the freakish lightshow until a rapid succession of lightning strikes hits nearby. Scared yet determined to find Robbie, Ray runs to Lincoln Avenue, where a crowd has formed around a spot where lightning struck 26 times.
Bad move, too, because, as Ray and the rest of the curious onlookers are about to find out, something huge, terrible, and alien is going to emerge from that spot. And soon, Ray Ferrier is going to have to worry not about punishing Robbie for taking the car without permission but about keeping his family alive in the midst of a close encounter of the worst kind with extraterrestrials bound on taking Earth for themselves.
Although Koepp, Friedman, and Spielberg have moved War of the Worlds’ setting in time and place from late Victorian England to 21st Century urban America, their film is more like H.G. Wells’ original novel than the George Pal-Byron Haskin 1953 film. It tells the story in a “hyper-real” fashion (a la Saving Private Ryan) and mostly from Ray’s point of view, which gives War of the Worlds a certain sense of emotional punch as we follow the Ferrier’s perilous trek from New Jersey to Boston.
In this narrow and focused view, the audience never sees a bigger world-picture of Earth under attack. Sure, there are subtle hints of what’s about to happen early on. Before Ray and Robbie have that tense father-son game of catch, the younger Ferrier is watching a news story about freak lightning storms in Ukraine, and later there is another report about the effects of similar storms in Japan. It’s an effective technique of irony – the audience knows what’s about to happen but the characters don’t.
One major change from both the novel and the 1953 film was the aliens’ point of origin. In both (as well as Orson Welles’ infamous 1938 radio adaptation), the invaders were from Mars. In the case of this film, the writers and director thought that it was best to not use Martians; we know far too much about the Red Planet to think highly advanced aliens still might live there, so now the attackers come from somewhere else in the galaxy.
Even though this isn’t one of my all-time favorite Spielberg films (Raiders of the Lost Ark still is my sentimental champ), I have to admire his unerring instincts as a storyteller. In accepting the Koepp-Friedman approach of not following conventional wisdom – flying saucers, famous landmarks being destroyed, Manhattan being obliterated, and generals in confined command centers – the director infuses an all-too familiar scenario with badly-needed originality. He subconsciously taps into World War II-era memories of European refugees and catapults them forward into our time; watch the scenes when the Ferriers are trekking along the highways and byways of the Northeast and note the juxtaposition of the sad and weary demeanor of displaced Americans and the bright colors of their clothes and backpacks.
Spielberg also injects some psychological post-9/11 undertones into War of the Worlds, either directly in dialogue (“Is it the terrorists?” asks a frightened Rachel as a turnpike overpass explodes nearby) or visually. In the initial invasion scene, the collapse of a church spire and the gray ashy look chosen by director of photography Janusz Kaminski eerily echo recollections of the collapse of the Twin Towers in New York City.
Although it does have its flaws, War of the Worlds is still a riveting film. It features fine performances from its cast, particularly young Dakota Fanning. She’s one of the best juvenile actors now working, and she manages to steal quite a few scenes from Tom Cruise. Justin Chatwin is also believable as the rebellious Robbie, and his interaction with both Cruise and Fanning is right on the money, conveying a wide range of emotions that go from bitter sullenness to a big brother’s protectiveness. Also interesting is Tim Robbins as a half-mad ambulance driver turned survivalist named Harlan Oglivy; he’s both sympathetic and creepily menacing.
The special effects, done by George Lucas’ Industrial Light and Magic, are excellent, having been handled by the same team that had just completed Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. The Tripods (which closely resemble those described in the novel) are digitally rendered, but they look real, menacing, and deadly.
Tom Cruise …. Ray Ferrier
Dakota Fanning …. Rachel Ferrier
Justin Chatwin …. Robbie Ferrier
Miranda Otto …. Mary Ann
Tim Robbins …. Harlan Ogilvy
Ann Robinson …. Grandmother
Gene Barry …. Grandfather
David Alan Basche …. Tim
