WAR OF THE WORLDS

WAR OF THE WORLDS (2005) Not what you might call a great movie.  My expectations entering the theater were extremely high and my anticipation was nearly insatiable. My trepidation was equally inconsolable. I felt really nervous for the success of this picture. After suffering a string of less than sterling movies over the past three years ranging from unmitigated failures of Cat in the Hat (2003) to Hide and Seek (2005), I felt desperate. Dakota really needed this movie. I knew that Dakota had done her best, but I felt she was being sabotaged at every twist and turn by idiot directors, producers, and worst of all co-stars. Case in point: Tom Cruise’s crazy romantic antics coupled with his spooky Scientology hokum. I felt that Tom had done the promotion of WOTW a huge disservice by creating a spectacle that shifted the focus of media away from the movie and on to Tom Cruise jumping on the couch.

     Dakota herself has never failed to deliver; she always managed to elevate what ever project she is attached to from what amounts to mediocre hack, to something special. I don’t think the poor girl knows she is surrounded by idiots. However it is enough to say that a couple of Dak’s past movies have missed the mark. I felt this WOTW was a make or break affair. If WOTW tanked, well . . . I wasn’t really prepared to contemplate failure.

     This is a movie doesn’t fool around, after a brief introduction to Ray the worlds shortest Newark dock worker, dead-beat-dad with the automobile engine in his living room. The action starts. Dakota is absolutely adorable on her arrival with her little zebra backpack and toy horsies. The visibly real-life pregnant Miranda Otto does well establishing the good and caring mom vs. the motor-head New Jersey Dad. Then the lightning comes and it is truly terrifying. At first amused by the spectacle, Ray beckons Rachel outdoors to view the unnatural phenomenon. Dakota delivers a chilling understated line: “I want to go inside.” She is convincing as a girl who wants to be with her dad but instantly recognizes that this is scary stuff. The lightning it turns out is only a precursor to further death and destruction as a massive electro-magnetic pulse renders (most) electronic devices useless.

     The Martians are truly terrifying, with their monstrous walking-machines, flailing tentacles and fog-horn calls of destruction that seem oddly mono-syllabically reminiscent of the five-note melody of universal harmony from CLOSE ENCOUNTERS. Instead this time the sound is malevolent: “I am going to kill you.”
      So what about Dakota? Dakota is absolutely superb. Who can resist a girl covered in mud? She doesn’t have a lot of time in the opening moments to establish character but she does the most with what precious few seconds she has. When she orders humus from the health food store or when initially she balks at getting into a strange car I could hear echoes of her suburban perfect I’ve-finally-married-up mother: “Whose car is this? Whose car is this?”
     Dakota manages to covey terror so convincingly it’s almost painful to watch. The sheer terror and confusion created when Ray tells her to wait by a tree while he goes to confront her brother. The kindly misguide couple who try so hard to abduct her for her own well being and half-realizing that he’s loosing his daughter but absolutely certain that he will loose his son. The total terror of Ray knowing that he can’t save both children at the same time and having to choose who to save. This is one of the movies most powerful scenes. Then there are the quiet scenes of terror when Dak wipes the spider from her face. The quiet, sweaty close-ups of her with a blindfold, while she knows full well her dad is going to kill the strange man who is up to this point has been their benefactor. Soon enough Dak is confronted with the hideous mechanical eye of the alien and she emits what has to be a modern classic movie scream to rival Janet Leigh in the shower. So good, infact she was ask to re-inact it on the TODAY show!
     I don’t have nearly as many problems with the ending as many of the movie critics to review this movie before me. I really can’t say that I liked the ending or it was satisfying in the same way that the last line of MASTER AND COMMANDER was perfect: “After all Steven, it is a flightless bird . . .”  I really can’t say I hated the ending. It was pretty much the way the book ended and the 1953 movie ended. The Martians die of the flu. It could have been more poignant, I think I might have like it to be a little bit more pan-dramatic, and as this was WAR OF THE WORLDS. Instead, Steven Spielberg chose to keep it intimate, one family’s reunion. Sure it was sappy, but I don’t go to the movies to leave feeling bad.

  

     H.G. Wells, an Englishman, a founding father of modern science fiction writing was considered in his day a left-wing radical who wrote his 1898 novel of Martian invasion as an indictment of English imperialism. Ironically, Orson Wells chose to update this theme for his 1938 audience as a warning of the coming of Nazis. Again in the 1953 movie, the bad guys were harbingers of the Russians and the Cold War. Spielberg has followed his predecessors and once again updated this theme when Dakota ask: “Is it the terrorist?”


WAR OF THE WORLDS  (2005) ** ½