Chey and I went to see War of the Worlds on Sunday night.
The short review was that I liked it even with it’s shortcomings.
There were a number of funny moments, mostly Dakota Fanning acting wiser than her years let on. In many scenes she was the best actor on the screen. To Chey the funniest moment involved Tom Cruise crying at something horrible that happened to him or his family. (She doesn’t like him all that much.) I’m not the biggest Tom Cruise fan either, but I didn’t laugh at his pain. I did laugh at Chey laughing at his pain though, I can’t lie.
I don’t know, what can I say? I would recommend it as an entertaining and edge-of-your-seat type movie. But it’s not my favorite movie, or even my favorite of this year.
For nitpicky-ness that involves spoilers, please click the following link…
I don’t know how closely it followed the book, but there were a number of plot holes that maybe could be explained by the fact that HG Wells didn’t have 2005 technology to base anything on. Like heat/infrared detectors. Any beings smart enough to construct and use the crazy machines that these aliens had shouldn’t have to visually detect life. I’m not saying that they would have had a Star Trek tricorder, but something that lets them see beyond what they can see. You’re telling me that the dang machines couldn’t scan that old farmhouse basement for signs of life instead of poking around with a single mechanical eye on the end of a long mechanical tenticle?
And those things had been buried for how long? And no one noticed them? Either they were super deep under ground, which makes some sense. But then where were the tons of earth that it would have displaced coming up from so deep? And if they weren’t buried all that deep, that part of the cities just happened to not have a subway/water line/gas line ever put in? How convenient.
And the lightning without thunder. Tom Cruise makes a comment about there being lightning without thunder but we never get an explanation. So the aliens have technology that can bend the laws of physics but they don’t have life detecting scanners. Interesting.
And the ending. Ohhhhhhh…the ending. Chey and I both rolled our eyes numerous times as the ending played out. It was just so contrived and nice and happy. And so unrealistic. Tom is trying to take his kids from NYC to Boston, where his ex-wife is. He wants to reunite the family so everyone can be safe. That’s not unrealistic. So the movie is the trials and tribulations of them traveling across the country side and through cities making their way. Along the way Tom’s rebellious son (they’ve been fighting all movie) decides that fighting the invincible aliens is the best way to go. He ditches his dad and his sister and runs up to where the army is lined up on a ridge line firing round after useless round into the aliens’ invincible shields. Not 5 seconds after he crests the ridge to look at the battle and Tom Cruise grabs his daughter and starts heading the opposite way, the entire hill and battlefield explodes in flames. Tanks and HMMWVs engulfed in flames started rolling back down the hill.
So we get to the end. Tom and Dakota walk up to a prestine neighborhood in Boston (how convenient that the aliens didn’t destroy the upscale neighborhoods) where from out of a row house comes Tom’s wife and her parents. What a happy reunion. The first eye roll. What? Everyone of them survived? Didn’t the aliens come anywhere near here?
And then, Steven Spielberg just got lazy. There weren’t enough eye rolls to go around for what happen’s next. Out walks Tom’s son for a tearful reunion involving a big hug that they probably hadn’t enjoyed in years. What? How exactly did the boy survive the worse than napalm hill of fire? Tanks were blown to smithereens. Not to mention that even after the battle the aliens hunted down people one by one and drained them of their blood. And this angsty boy managed to get out and walk the rest of the way to Boston? Pathetic.
Oh, and the way that the aliens were defeated was a very interesting idea. Very believable even if it did happen a lot quicker than one might have thought.
Still, the movie was mostly well done. It kept tense for almost the whole thing and was a pretty fun ride.
