Mars Attacks
In Steven Spielberg's spectacular yet mildly unsatisfying War of the Worlds, the invaders target our heartland. The first time we see one of the huge, otherworldly war machines, it erupts from beneath a humble neighborhood intersection with a church on one corner and an insurance company on another.
In this War of the Worlds, Spielberg has more on his mind than roller coaster thrills, despite visually accomplished destruction. The film reveals a preoccupation with Sept. 11, both through its story and its symbols. Tom Cruise's Ray Ferrier, an eyewitness to an early alien strike, returns home and desperately hustles away his children. "Is it the terrorists?" they ask, as if years of safety drills and TV specials following 9/11 have them awaiting another al-Qaeda attack.
War of the Worlds is shot with imagery that evokes our memories of 9/11. After the street corner blitz, a veil of pale dust makes Ray look like one of the bystanders when the World Trade Center towers fell. A crashed plane demolishes suburban homes. Even Morgan Freeman's opening narration, though adapted from H.G. Wells' novel, refers to "jealous" beings striking across the "gulf" of space, making the invasion sound like a jihad against the American way.
With a story about mankind facing extermination and symbols from the most traumatic event in recent American history, War of the Worlds sets high ambitions for itself. Spielberg wants to elevate a sci-fi action premise comparable to Close Encounters or Jurassic Park to engage with pressing real-world themes. It's a little disappointing that War of the Worlds turns out to be, in part, a basic Cruise vehicle.
War of the Worlds follows the usual Cruise template - from Risky Business to Jerry Maguire - about a cocky, callow hotshot who needs lessons in maturity and responsibility. A divorced dad, Ray's an elder take on the typical Cruise character, at first proving more childish than his own kids, 10-year-old Rachel (Dakota Fanning) and teenage Robbie (Justin Chatwin, who resembles the young Cruise).
Armageddon from space provides Ray with a crash course in fatherhood, from finding food to meeting his children's emotional needs. Fleeing the invaders, Ray is initially jittery to the point of hysteria, as if the overgrown adolescent has finally faced things he can't outrun, outmuscle or charm.
The point of view stays with Ray and the kids, who effectively become refugees in America. Technically proficient as ever, Spielberg constructs many haunting moments: towering tripods blasting towns and farmland with death rays, malignant extraterrestrials creeping into basement shelters, blood-red vegetation infesting the countryside. Yet the most frightening scene involves no ETs or special effects, just terrorized humans-turned-savage as they fight over the only working automobile in miles. When we turn on each other, the bug-eyed monsters have won.
War of the Worlds' strongest ideas explore how catastrophe brings out the best and worst in Americans, particularly when Ray and Rachel find sanctuary with Ogilvy (a hammy Tim Robbins), a shell-shocked survivalist who becomes increasingly irrational. From a deadbeat dad, Ray becomes a man capable of morally questionable deeds to protect his family. Ray's development could be both a call for a formerly complacent America to become a more responsible nation, or a justification for ugly acts in the name of "homeland security."
Josh Friedman and David Koepp's script touches on some powerful ideas without thinking them through. Despite some massive crowd scenes, War of the Worlds feels like an underpopulated, underwritten movie with a shortage of grown-up foils. Still, Chatwin and Fanning effectively convey the dynamics of kids from broken homes. Though Spielberg relies heavily on putting the little girl in jeopardy, Fanning gives a rich performance, showing how Rachel's early self-assurance masks complicated neuroses.
Spielberg remains too much of an innate crowd-pleaser to end such a bleak film on a bleak note, and the capper to Ray's efforts to keep his family together feels like a total cheat. The script retains the same twist-ending of Wells' novel and the 1953 film version, but the resolution now makes little sense in the context of other changes to the plot. Such an apocalyptic film feels strangely inconsequential by the closing credits.
War of the Worlds is not Spielberg's Fahrenheit 9/11 and takes care to avoid overt political partisanship or ID4-style jingoism. Ray and Ogilvy both have admirable impulses to defend their country that seem suicidally reckless given the aliens' implacable might. But it's not an anti-military film, either, making room for some slam-bang triumphs at the end.
Freeman's above-it-all final lines about "God's infinite wisdom" really stick in my craw. Though War of the Worlds involves a global threat, and Ray has a couple of briefly seen nonwhite buddies, it's a very white movie, with American flags crowded into the margins of many shots. God ultimately proves to be on our side, and make no mistake, that's not just the "human" side. It's the American side.
curt.holman@creativeloafing.com
