War of the Worlds does exactly what it says on the tin and it does not disappoint. Expecting a summer blockbuster aimed at kids and therefore not expecting to be particularly impressed, I found myself surprised and absolutely riveted, with a pounding heart for most of the movie. The effects are phenomenal, worth discussion at length in themselves. I am looking foreword to the DVD bonus material for some explanation. There are no clever but clichéd aerial shots, zooms or views from the tripod's perspective; the storytelling is done from the viewpoint of Cruise's character only and this makes it compelling, utterly absorbing and very real as a result.
In an age where natural disasters, heart-stopping news stories and eyewitness accounts of appalling tragedy are unfortunately becoming more and more commonplace, Spielberg harnesses the power of the personal to great effect. We see only the desperate run for the protagonist's life throughout the first two thirds of the movie, without any silly Bruce Willis heroics. This is neatly backed up by Cruise's reliably strong and underplayed acting as Joe Average, plonked in a workaday domestic situation, failing miserably at restoring a broken relationship with his resentful children.
Like AI - Artificial Intelligence, E.T. Close Encounters and even Jaws, Spielberg has always lavished attention on the scene-setting, making the squabbles between siblings, corny jokes, flawed parenting and suppressed emotion compelling viewing in itself. This, contrasted with the extraordinary, whether it's sharks, aliens or robots make the subsequent action all the more powerful.
As a result you can see evidence of all these previous successes reflected in War Of The Worlds, along with some hefty borrowing from M Night Shayalman's Signs, Falling Down and his own work as producer in Twister. Nevertheless, you can justifiably add here that Spielberg was at the forefront of all these and where does the pastiche begin and end with a genre such as this? Probably with Spielberg himself.
Thank God Spielberg was first tackling such a project and Michael Bay or Jerry Bruckheimer didn't get a look in - mercifully and very tastefully, considering the naturally high body count in a film of this nature, the audience is spared flying body parts and dying people gasping their last. While hapless citizens are exterminated over and over these are almost wholly filmed in the distance. Again in these troubled times there is no need to glorify this kind of gratuitous gore: we see enough of it on TV. While this may have been made to gain the 12A certificate the UK and the equivalent domestically, it also makes much more palatable viewing and reflects the intelligence and sensitivity of the director.
Finally a word about that ending. Yes it's weak, yes Cruise does take on a bit of Bruce "Welcome to the party pal" Willis's characteristics (the book had a completely different and violent ending as it's set in a village in southeast England at the end of the c19th) and everyone - in a comfortable suburb of Boston at least - lives happily ever after. It doesn't sit particularly well after the shocking pace of the previous 90 minutes, and it was greeted with a few groans in the cinema where I saw it.
But let's put this in context: as long as we have conservative, probably Republican, white American men at the helm of the the studios involved in financing movies and more than enough evidence that happy endings put bums on seats, I don't see things changing in my lifetime. It's disappointing but that's life. I was just glad to get home to my own humdrum domestic situation and put the kettle on, happy not to have bloodsucking monsters tearing down my door.
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