War of the Worlds
Cast: Tom Cruise, Dakota Fanning, Tim Robbins, Justin Chatwin and Miranda Otto

Director: Steven Spielberg

Synopsis:
Ray Ferrier is a working class man living in New Jersey. He's estranged from his family, his life isn't in order, and he's too caught up with himself. But the unthinkable and, ultimately, the unexpected happens to him in an extraordinary sense. His small town life is shaken violently by the arrival of destructive intruders: Aliens which have come en masse to destroy Earth. As they plow through the country in a wave of mass destruction and violence, Ray must come to the defense of his children. As the world must fend for itself by a new and very advanced enemy not of this world, it's inhabitants must save humanity from a far greater force that threatens to destroy it. (taken from imdb.com)


Review:
Reviewing War of the Worlds is quite a frustrating experience for me. There are some movies whose beginning and middle are great but ultimately crashed and burned at the end. War of the Worlds is one of them. For the first 3/4 of the movie or so, I was convinced that I was watching one of this year's best film. It truly felt like commercial moviemaking at its finest and Steven Spielberg return to the form that made him such a revered filmmaker. However, no matter how good Spielberg is, he has a weakness and it's so unfortunate that the film was let down by it that it prevented the film from fulfilling its potential as a truly great movie.

I will start spoiling the movie more below. So, if you don't want to be spoiled, stop now. In short, it's hard for me to recommend the movie based on the ending. But whatever goes before the ending was a great non-stop thrilling experience (with great action, scares, drama and special effects) that should not be missed and I would highly recommend the movie just based on that alone; at least it's better than an out-and-out bad movie. Here's hoping Spielberg will learn from his mistakes.

/*SPOILER BELOW*/

I'm going to talk about the great stuffs first. The first 3/4 of the movie was so awesome, it stayed with me for a couple of days after I watched it. The first (and probably most memorable) standout scene was the first appearance of the tripod - boy, it was a wonder to behold, with its machine-like Godzilla-inspired sound announcing its arrival and start zapping people with its laser guns. It happened in one long continuous uninterrupted(?)-like take, creating a huge tension. I was blown away by that. and it was only the beginning and Spielberg has more in store.

The next great scene was when Tom Cruise character came out of his ex-wife's house to discover that it has been destroyed by a plane crash. What stood out in this scene is not the plane crash (although the revealing shot was jaw-dropping) but the part in which he met with a surviving news crew and learnt the horrible capability of the aliens that he (and the audience) never knew. Apparently taking a leaf out of M Night Shyamalan's Signs, the movie never show huge city destruction scene ala Independence Day but instead tries to convey it through something as minimalist as television footage that made the scene more horrifying because you can't see it fully. The "show not tell" approach has never been more successful. Speaking of Signs, there is also other scenes in WotW that mirrors Signs: the scene where Tom Cruise tried to make bread for his kids is similar to the 'last dinner' scene in Signs and also the scene where Tom Cruise try to put Dakota Fanning to sleep by singing a lullaby recalls the scene in Signs where Mel Gibson tries to calm his children by telling the story of their birth. Since Shyamalan was inspired by Spielberg, it's only fitting that Spielberg is inspired back.

Spielberg also understand that, like Signs, the movie would just be an empty spectacle without a good story/drama and characters that you would care about. Taking the Signs route (again), Spielberg chose to focus on the 'everyday' guy Ray Ferrier (played by Tom Cruise) and his attempts to protect his family and staying alive. Granted, given the nature of the film, the drama was established rather quickly and the characters are at best, two dimensional. But the actors rose to the challenge to make us care for the characters. Tom Cruise is surprisingly good at portraying the jerk, lousy father character instead of the usual heroic top-gun roles that he has been (sometimes unfairly) associated with him. We cared for him when he changes and become more serious and caring to protect his children. Dakota Fanning is also very talented but comes close to overact in some situations.

Speaking of Spielberg, there has been a continuing recent trend where he tries to tackle darker and bolder subjects in his recent movies like AI and Minority Report (his next film about Munich Olympics murder will continue the trend). This movie is no exception. Before the ending comes, I felt that Spielberg has never made a more terrifying movie than this (Saving Private Ryan and Schindler's List are war movies, they are a bit different), daring to suggest the idea of a world helpless against an invading force and what people would do for survival - this is what makes the movie especially more frightening, not the destructions, but the idea. Spielberg also slips in some scenes which are open to social commentary interpretations. One scene was about what people would do to get a car was frightening. There was one other standout scene which made me clap my hand in the middle of the movie. Clapping my hand made me look like an idiot but the scene really resonated with me strongly. It was (right after Dakota Fanning saw the body flowing down the river) when Tom Cruise son, played by Justin Chatwin, saw the incoming trucks of armies going to fight the invaders moving in the opposite direction and he tried desperately to join them. Tom Cruise, upon seeing him doing that, tried to stop him and both ended up quarreling. Tom Cruise, who has seen what the aliens are capable of earlier, obviously know that the army was helpless against them and tried to convince his son that moving to the direction of the attack site is pointless. The son thought differently; it was like it's much safer if they had stayed with the army. The scene resonated with me because it reminded me about the war in Iraq and many americans' gung-ho attitude about their army. Some americans believe that just because they are superpowers, they could or are 'right' to do everything without knowing or thinking about the consequences of their actions including their decision to go to war in Iraq.

Now, I will talk about what don't work. The movie starts its downhill slide the moment Tim Robbins appear and the movie suddenly switches to a claustrophobic mode. The scenes here are interesting all right, but they feel a little out of sync with what came before it. Then comes the ending, which was anti-climatic and extremely disappointing. Before, I go further, let me explain the ending: basically, the aliens could not adapt to the earth's environment and died naturally (it is never said but it was implied by the narration and the ending animation follows the book microbes ending) and Ray founds his ex-wife and her family including her husband and her parents are still alive. Not only that, the house light is still on too and the son who was missing earlier when he decided to go to the battlefield survived and apparently made it ALL THE WAY TO BOSTON (I guess by himself). Now, the Spielberg weakness that I was referring too just now was that it seems that he needs to have every single movie by him end with a happy ending. Furthermore, not only must it be a happy ending, it must be as 'happy' as possible, even if the movie is probably better without a happy ending. Let me make it clear that it is not the happy ending that annoyed me, but it's the need for it and the way Spielberg presented it. Remember Minority Report? /*Minority Report spoiler ahead */ In that movie, not only does the bad guy got his comeuppance, but Tom Cruise wife get pregnant again, which was 'happy' because Tom Cruise lost his only son and his marriage broke down because of that in that movie - the ending ensures us that they live happily ever after... which was not really necessary /*End Spoiler*/. I believe that given the darker material presented throughout the movie, the ending should be at least a little melancholic if it has to be a happy one. If the wife and son had died, it would probably make the character development of Tom Cruise's character more poignant since he becomes a better person at the end, but with some sacrifice. But instead of that, we got both of them alive in a ridiculously stable condition, as if nothing has happened to them. It's really a waste what a great movie it could have been had it ended differently.

Contrary to some people, I didn't find the way the aliens were defeated to be annoying/bothersome, if you think about what was said in the narration and that it was the ending of the actual book, the whole thing is actually reasonable.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5