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WAR
OF THE WORLDS ONLINE REVIEWS CONTAINS SPOILERS!!! We start this epic story of invasion and survival swimming about in a drop of water as the soothing voice of Morgan Freeman introduces the film with the same words that opened the novel more than 100 years ago. The hair on the back of my neck was still stood to attention as the lead character, his family and ex family are introduced. This was the part of the movie that was make or break for me. Would Tom Cruise be a believable blue-collar guy? I wanted to find flaws in the way he was portraying Ray Ferrier but I really did accept him in this role. The family that the writers have created for Cruise are just as believable. There isn’t a lot time to introduce much depth to them in a short space of time, yet, somehow you really warm to them and believe the family situation they are in. It’s not formulaic or dull. The action starts as the lightning storm hits. The whole scene really has you on the edge of your seat as the situation develops and gets more and more intense. When you think you’ve hit a climax moment the build up to the next begins, from storm, to cracking pavements, to a rising tripod, to the panic in the streets. The first action filled scene of the film let me know that it was going to have my heart pounding throughout. There are very few drops in the pace of the film, yet this isn’t at the expense of the dialogue or the plot. Dialogue is something that is left out of many of the main action sequences, not to the detriment of the film. It gives you a feeling that you are there with Ray (our main character) running along side as he, sometimes too conveniently, escapes death with his family. I don’t really want to go into plot specifics as I feel that finding the way various snippets we’ve seen from trailers connect to each other and how this movie unfolds in comparison to the novel is part of the fun. One thing I will say is that the book is represented well throughout. I know most purist fans would have loved to see a big budget production set at the turn of the century, but I promise that if you go in with an open mind you won’t be disappointed. One thing that is apparent is that for a 12A (or PG13 if your reading this in America) there really are some truly horrific images. I wouldn’t really want to take anyone under 13 to see this as it’s bound to give them nightmares in the same way the novel gave me nightmares as a child. Bodies floating down rivers, a train speeding past a group of refugees, every carriage engulfed in flame. It’s not Spongebob, although he does make an appearance. It lives up to it’s description as the story of one man and his family, and never turns into a glorified war film with aliens as the enemy. In fact it is over 50 minutes before we first see a military presence in the film, and then it is in a non-combat role. The mob scene reflects the truly terrifying nature of the human will to survive and aspects of human compassion and frustration. Some of the cinematography in the ferry scene seemed lifted straight from my mind, and how I had always imagined the escape of the writer’s brother from Tillingham in the novel. For War of the Worlds fans the most important character after Ray has to be Ogilvy (Tim Robins) who encompasses 2 of the main characters from the novel. He is both the artilleryman and the curate. It’s an easy couple to marry into one character and even though at times I found myself not really convinced with Robin’s effort at the role. I still think that the writers did well to give us the frightening optimism of the artilleryman and the painfully bleak outlook of the curate. The invaders are amazing; my jaw was well and truly on the ground at the sight of a 100-foot high tripod rising up before the gathered crowd. I think you have to be a fan of The War of the Worlds to truly appreciate how that feels. To see the titans you’ve always wanted to see on screen striding about with the most realistic CG to date is really something else, and for those of you who’ve wondered, we do get an ULLA!!! It’s deep and terrifying and made the cinema shake. My one problem with the tripods was that they seem to grow and shrink throughout the film, however this is only nit picking as the overall design is both modern and appreciates the description in the book. Sadly they do have shields as with the 1953 film, trouble is modern weaponry would kick the arses of the original novel Martians. Let’s face it. The aliens (I always want to write Martians, but never
mind) themselves are interesting, not what I expected at all. They are
more like a mixture between the aliens from ‘Independence Day’
and the cute annoying pet alien from ‘Lost in Space’. This
doesn’t stop them being terrifying (if slightly amusing and cute),
yet I think it might have been better if we’d seen less of them
and let our minds fill in the blanks. That or an exact copy of the original
novel. The ending is somewhat disappointing, as it just seems
to happen. I felt there needed to be a slower realization that the aliens
had died, a more gradual demise, it’s not so bad for us fans who
know that the invaders don’t survive but for the general public
this might be a bit of an abrupt turn of events. The use of scavenging
birds throughout the ending is a nice link to the book. All in all, I was more than impressed. I was worried that after tracking the development of this film for 3 years it was going to be an anticlimax. For me that wasn’t the case. I think the trouble with us ‘worlds’ fans is that we all love different aspects of the story, for me it’s the idea of escape and survival. I think that there is something every fan can get from it, and that when you see the tripod rising into the sky you’ll say “God bless Steven Spielberg”. Then again, that might just be me :) Steven Spielberg’s ‘War of the Worlds’ staring Tom Cruise is on general release in most countries 29th June 2005. UK and Ireland 1st July 2005. |