The Third Tom Cruise Thread - "War of the Worlds" reviews (spoilers in boxes!)

[Ecthy]

Robby

[JohnT]

I saw it for the second time and it is one of the few that has gotten better with repeated viewings.

For starters, let's not forget that the entire invasion is seen from Tom Cruise's perspective - only once in the movie do we get a glimpse of worldwide devastation (anybody recognize the city being destroyed?) This is why we don't see:

1. Nuclear explosions. Floppy.
2. Announcements of the aliens intentions. The assumption was that it was a war for extermination. Lonestar.
3.

Spoiler:

Tom saving us from the evil Aliens.

nostromo.

posted by Pai Mei: I'd give it a 7/10. Its definitely not a must see movie. Go see it if there's nothing else.

I emphatically, strongly disagree.

posted by Rufus T. Firefly: Anyone here ever met a working class joe, just scraping by, who wears a $1,200+ watch to manual-labor job? Spielberg couldn't whore out to Timex? Sheesh.

Actually, due to job demands coupled with archaic and non-competitive union agreements, the type of crane operator that Cruise plays makes over 6-figures a year. Cite: some Discovery/TLC/History channel show my wife and I watched just last night. Really! So the expensive watch isn't out of the question.

Spoiler:

Spielberg's actually stolen the ending, visually, from one of the most famous endings in all of American cinema: the ending of The Searchers

Sorry, but Cruise wasn't out there alone long enough to really consider the ending to be a re-creation of The Searchers ending. The little girl runs to mom, then it cuts to Tom, then the parents, back to mom, and then back to Tom (from the perspective of inside the doorframe) when 1/4 of the frame is blocked by the kids silhouette. He runs up to Tom, they look at each other for the first time man-to-man, hug, and head back into the house. The shot might have been reminiscent (and probably intended to be so), but the ending itself was completely different.

It seems you wanted a Searchers-esque ending and was very disappointed when your expectations weren't met. C'est la vie.

Spoiler:

I do agree with Drake that the film would've been better had Robbie died. Actually, have Dakota die (say, in the alien), Tom return to his wife empty-handed, and then have Robbie showing up as he did: that would've been a stunner!

Better yet, he was rescued by the same lady that tried to rescue Dakota.

That would've been heartbreaking. And, imho, make for a much better movie. Not that this one isn't awesome, but...

shit.

While I disagree with your reasoning, Rufus, I do think the ending could've been better, darker, bleaker. The world is saved, but his world is shattered. You're right on that point.

[Dauphin]

Spoiler:

I thought it a bit odd that the town houses where the wife's family lived where almost completely unscathed and that the family were still there

I also forgive the symbolism of independence that Boston is* because when the army finally took out a tripod with the bazookas the crowd weren't cheering "USA! USA!".

*it was just a bit cheesy from a non-American POV to see the statue with the root suffering dutch elm disease or whatever it was

[JohnT]

A couple of more notes:

1. The cinematography (sp?) is excellent, especially in its use of mirrored images. A number of scenes/shots occur in reflective environments, the best imho being the reflections in the mirrors showing the carnage happening behind the van. Even the camcorder shot was nicely done.

2. The scene, as they are racing down the highway - how long is that one shot?

I was watching it today and quite a ways into the scene, I realized that I haven't seen a cut in ages. I started paying attention and noticed that the camera seemed to be like a super-powered insect, moving around the car, focusing on each character as they spoke/acted. A couple of times it even left the car, swung around to the other side, and then entered the van, re-joining the action.

I might be mistaken: there could be a cut or three that I missed. But I don't think so. And if that shot qualifies as a tracking shot, it has to go down as one of the greatest of all time. No if, ands, or buts.

3. Spielberg has certainly done a 180 on the idea of munificient alien space-hippies who like disco, hasn't he?

[Nostromo]

Since I've been reading the book, I changed my mind. Yes, even Pai Mei can change his mind. But I still think its flawed.

About the ending:

Spoiler:

Given Wells' purpose, the ending is adequate overall. Wells couldn't have the Humans defeat the Aliens. It would have defeated his purpose. War of the world is basically a put-yourself-in-their-shoes book. Wells was a citizen of the mighty British Empire and he asked his fellow countrymen to put themselves in the shoes of the "savages" they colonized, of the species they exterminated.

Wells compares Humanities situation to the dodo's, who were exterminated by men. He writes : "Some respectable dodo in the in the Mauritius might have lorded it in his nest, and discussed the arrival of that shipful of pitiless sailors in want of food. "We will peck them to death tomorrow, my dear."

It was hopeless. So there were two options, IMO: either we luck out or we get exterminated or enslaved. Diseases slowed down the colonization of Africa. Imagine what would have happened without the helping hand of these germs.

[JohnT]

Originally posted by nostromo
Since I've been reading the book, I changed my mind. Yes, even Pei Mei can change his mind.

But not, apparently, spell his name correctly.

Pai Mei.

[Nostromo]

That's it, I'm not teaching you anything, not even how to pick your nose with chopsticks.

[Atahualpa]

Originally posted by Barinthus

The film starts heavy-handedly. Divorced from his wife Mary Ann (Miranda Otto), Ray -- as the script makes clear again and again -- is an inept, indifferent father. When his children reluctantly appear for a rare visitation to his messy bachelor pad in working-class New Jersey, we're repeatedly shown that they don't particularly like him, and he has no idea of how to relate to them.

But things pick up considerably when a gigantic and strange....

Can someone PLEASE think of something different for good... it's always the same ****.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Originally posted by JohnT

Spoiler:

Spielberg's actually stolen the ending, visually, from one of the most famous endings in all of American cinema: the ending of The Searchers

Sorry, but Cruise wasn't out there alone long enough to really consider the ending to be a re-creation of The Searchers ending. The little girl runs to mom, then it cuts to Tom, then the parents, back to mom, and then back to Tom (from the perspective of inside the doorframe) when 1/4 of the frame is blocked by the kids silhouette. He runs up to Tom, they look at each other for the first time man-to-man, hug, and head back into the house. The shot might have been reminiscent (and probably intended to be so), but the ending itself was completely different.

It seems you wanted a Searchers-esque ending and was very disappointed when your expectations weren't met. C'est la vie.

Actually, far from looking for The Seachers -- a film I haven't seen in ages -- it just kind of snuck up on me and I thought, "Hey, it's The Searchers!" the same way I thought "Hey, it's Citizen Kane!" the first time I saw the final warehouse shot in Raiders. But here's the thing:

Spoiler:

The last scene really does feel like The Searchers right up until the moment Robby appears. Forget the famous last shot of the door closing on Ethan and look at the whole scene again: a man approaches a house to which is not entirely welcome, carrying the young girl he's rescued; the family rushes in awe to the porch; the woman who's still in love with him looks on with a mixture of love and regret; the girl he's saved rushes to her real family without a second thought for him; the family stays on the porch and he stays in the middle distance, showing a gulf that won't be bridged not only between him and them but between heroism and domestic life -- it The Searchers all over!

My initial reaction, btw, was not negative but positive -- "Hey Steve, nice reference, nice connection, way to go." Then Robby shows up and the whole point of the reference is completely undermined if not negated, because Spielberg lacks the guts to mix triumph and pathos the way Ford did. But I swear I wasn't looking for it; it's there -- no surprise, given Spielberg's film-school credentials and love of movies -- and he fubarred it.

[FrostyBoy]

Seems like no one has grasped the concept Speilberg was getting at with this movie.

I think I should help you slow evolving ones by giving you a hint: You never leave Tom Cruise.

[MosesPresley]

Spoiler:

Two glitches: The EMP pulse knocked out all electronic devices. How was that camcorder working?

And how did the reporter get a film of the aliens entering the ground?

These glitches didn't bother me at all. Hell, I didn't even notice them. I had to read about them. I was too busy running from the tripod with the characters.

The ending and the battle scene at the hill were definitely substandard though.

The Ending: The mother's house looks untouched by the invasion. She and the family are clean and unruffled. They look worried, but completely untouched. They should have been crawling out of the rubble or something similar. Why didn't the aliens touch Boston? What was the matter? Did they use MapQuest and get lost?! It just didn't fit.

Hill Battle: How did the boy escape that wall of fire?

I thought the whole reason that Spielberg let that annoying boy run off to see what the army was doing, was to allow the audience to see the batlle too. That really bugged me that we didn't get to see any of the fighting. It would have fit the plot perfectly with its emphasis on only showing what the characters personally witnessed. And this would have been the perfect opportunity to put in the Thunder-Child scene. Maybe that scene ended up on the cutting room floor.

Other than those two things, which nearly ruined the movie for me, but not quite, I thought this was a truely intense and literally awesome adaptation.

[MosesPresley]

Originally posted by Sn00py
Seems like no one has grasped the concept Speilberg was getting at with this movie.

I think I should help you slow evolving ones by giving you a hint: You never leave Tom Cruise.

You leave Tom Cruise during the pivotal Ogilvy scene.

[Nostromo]

Moses, Spielberg probably ran out of money

[MosesPresley]

I thought Spielberg had money flowing out of his sink taps.

I guess, and I am only guessing here, he was contracted to do a two hour movie and that's what he delivered.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Originally posted by MosesPresley
I thought Spielberg had money flowing out of his sink taps.

I guess, and I am only guessing here, he was contracted to do a two hour movie and that's what he delivered.

Spielberg dictates the terms of his contract; he doesn't have them dictated to him.

Moreover, two hours is not the run-time barrier it once was, especially for big movies; Batman Begins, for example, was ~140 minutes, as were ROTS and Cinderella Man. So Spielberg definitely had time to show the battle. But

Spoiler:

I think showing Robby surviving that battle would strain credulity to its breaking point. And since he needs Robby to survive for his ridiculously happy ending, its better not to show it and hope people are so swept away with emotion at the end that they don't stop to think.