So we (my wife and I) went to see the Spielberg-butchers-H.G. Wells epic The War of the Worlds on Friday.
The acting was OK, although I find it hard to watch Tom Cruise without being aware of the fact that the man seems to be, based on recent outbursts, seriously nuts. (Still, if I let that bother me too much, I’d hardly be able to watch a movie or listen to a popular song, would I?)
The plot had enormous holes in it. (SLIGHT SPOILER ALERT! STOP READING NOW IF YOU ACTUALLY EXPECT TO BE SURPRISED BY ANYTHING IN WAR OF THE WORLDS!)
Just one: why on or off Earth would you bury your giant tripods in the ground thousands of years before delivering the crews to them? If you can send something that size to Earth, surely they can arrive fully crewed. And I note that in the book, the Martians build the tripods after arriving. The only reason I can think of is because somebody thought it would be really cool for these giant tripods to come out of the ground, and so they had to justify it. Story in the service of special effects, in other words, rather than the other way around.
OK, one more. If humans are such a valuable resource for you that you plant to harvest them like watermelons, why would you needlessly kill so many of them upon landing? Especially if you’re immune to their weapons anyway? Let ’em run around under your feet, step on them if they get in the way, pluck ’em up and suck ’em dry as required, but don’t disintegrate them for no good reason. It’s not like they’re a threat. Except that you’ve got these really cool disintegration special effects…
But all of that could be forgiven, as we forgive so many of the narrative sins of our Hollywood overlords, if not for the totally unearned happy ending. HOW did that boy survive? HOW did that entire neighborhood manage to remain undamaged, except for a need for a good streetsweeping? I swear I even saw a light glowing in the grandparent’s house (and they looked as if they’d stepped right out of a Freedom 55 commercial, didn’t they, instead of living in terror for the last few weeks) as if they alone, of all the people of Boston, still had electricity.
Completely illogical, completely unearned, and therefore, completely ineffective. The ending was a lie, and it made the rest of the film a lie: an excuse for special effects, and nothing else.
Thumbs down.
