War of the Worlds: Summer Movie Classic?

Tom Cruise was everywhere in the months prior to the opening of War of the Worlds, jumping up and down and grinning like a maniac whenever there was a camera present. Whether he was on a mission to ram his relationship with Katie Holmes down the throats of the populous or just prove how truly strange he is, his antics were almost enough to make the film’s release anticlimactic. Almost.

Adapted from H.G. Wells’ 1898 classic, Steven Spielberg dazzles and stuns audiences en masse with his chilling survival story. Cruise portrays Ray Ferrier, a self-absorbed, working class divorcee with a less than admirable relationship with his young daughter, Rachel (Dakota Fanning) and teenage son, Robbie (Justin Chatwin). Ray is given custody of the two while his ex-wife (Miranda Otto) goes to visit her parents in Boston with her new husband.

Before any clichÃ?©s concerning semi-absent father/child relations appear or even before the audience’s seats have warmed, the film takes a quantum leap forward as we watch the world fall under the attack of vicious aliens, who favor vaporizing everyone in sight.

In areas where other directors may have failed, Spielberg executes tension, action, and emotion with ease, using the talents of cinematographer Janusz Kaminski and visual-effects supervisor Dennis Murenthe to his advantage. The audience finds themselves running alongside the characters, not watching them, as the terror escalates.

Though War of the Worlds is thoroughly enjoyable you might find about an hour into the film that it’s executed masterly, but where the action succeeds the plot falls short. Holes abound in this modern remake, especially concerning the procedural points of the alien attack. Nevertheless, those faults won’t matter much to those who want to see explosions and large groups of people running and screaming, but die-hard Spielberg fans might feel slighted. As if the whiz-bang-zoom elements are meant only to distract you from the fact that there are aspects of the film that just don’t make any sense.

However, by the time your popcorn has gone stale and your ice melts into your drink you’ll realize that where War of the Worlds fails, you’re sure to forgive. This film is pure unadulterated entertainment just like your garden variety summer movie should be, minus cheesy love scenes and ridiculously catchy one-liners; all the stuff no one really wants to see anyway.

Rated: PG-13 for frightening sequences of sci-fi violence and disturbing images.
Runtime: 116 minutes.