War of the Worlds Release Date: June 29, 2005 Starring: Tom Cruise, Dakota Fanning, Miranda Otto, Justin Chatwin, Tim Robbins Directed by: Steven Spielberg
PREMIERE.COM'S REVIEW (posted 6/28/05)
No longer living under the shadow of cinema prophet Stanley Kubrick, all-American blockbustin' champ Steven Spielberg has been subtly envisaging some of his own grim notions in latter-day works like A.I. and Minority Report, yet his latest glossy dystopia features the most pulled punches and elephantine manipulations we've seen since Schindler's List. Holocaust metaphors can definitely be drawn in War of the Worlds, a solemn popcorn-epic retelling of H.G. Wells's alien-invasion standard, but the truly underhanded stunt Spielberg pulls is his explicit use of parallel 9/11 imagery (dust-covered crowds running, walls of missing-person flyers, a confused cry of "Is that the terrorists?"), which is not for mere comparison or proactive allegory, but to exploit our collective anxieties for the greater good of white-knuckle potency. That said, the film's only sublime moments happen in scenes where the population gets blown up.
Like you didn't know, self-inflicted media victim Tom Cruise stars as Ray Ferrier, a divorced Jersey alpha-dad (with a dock job, muscle car, and condiment-only fridge for character) who ungraciously takes on his apathetic kids (The Chumscrubber's Justin Chatwin, precocious platitude Dakota Fanning) for One Terrible Weekend. Spielberg wastes no time: Within hours, a freak electrical storm repeatedly touches down on a nearby intersection-and just as the rubbernecking crowd leans in-towering, tentacled "tripods" emerge to destroy all humans; in the 21st century, E.T. is now a W.M.D. Unlike other world catastrophe flicks like Independence Day or Deep Impact, the film reduces its focus to just one man's family adversity, its microcosmic potential nearly sabotaged by making Ray into a super-everyman with impossible luck. As the half-assed paterfamilias with something to prove, a miscast Cruise may be as implausible as the sci-fi plotholes are endless (batteries work; cell phones shut off?), but you have to hand it to the guy for trying to bring the role true heart and a cleared thetan. At least he doesn't look half as ridiculous as Tim Robbins — showing up with his stock Walken wild-eye after the nth running-for-their-lives cycle — who lends his basement to our heroes in a sequence that allows the director his darkest hour onscreen, a rather excessive bit that is all but wiped by the sunshine of an inflexibly Spielberged resolution.
War of the Worlds has masterfully polished mechanics, some of the most seamless CGI effects in recent memory, and the Wells veneration is admirable. However, the film takes far too many creative shortcuts, like bookended narration (by voiceover go-to Morgan Freeman, no less) and aliens that make strategically humanlike mistakes, completely incongruous to their technological superiority (Dakota Fanning would be toast if only they bothered to glance down). Furthermore, can't filmmakers "invent" alien lifeforms that look more otherworldly than people, animals, or high-end Sony prototypes? Maybe that's all too much to ask for in a picture that has an apocalypse-fearing Tom Cruise yanking on heartstrings by singing "Little Deuce Coupe" as a teary-eyed lullaby.
—Aaron Hillis
Copyright © 2008 Hachette Filipacchi Media U.S., Inc.