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War of the Worlds - Ratings are Meaningless (spoilers)
I went to see War of the Worlds today, as is the tradition (to see a movie) on my birthday, and it wasn't at all what I expected. I was thinking a light, kinda cheesy, action packed, summer popcorn movie. Like Independence Day or Armageddon. Or like other Spielberg movies. Jurassic Park, or ET or something.
That was not this movie.
No plucky comic relief. No romance. No inspiring, uplifting glimpses at the best of humanity. No cheesy speeches or impossible scenarios. Quite the opposite. This was a PG-13 horror movie. Better acronyms to describe it are dark, grim, horrific, and gruesome.
In fact this movie was more difficult to sit through than 95% of the R rated movies I've seen. Which is why ratings are really quite stupid and meaningless.
Unlike some cheesy slasher pic, this didn't have fountains of blood. This didn't have some lame looking brain spill out of someone's skull. That stuff is about as scary and difficult to watch as Wiley Coyote getting an Acme safe dropped on him. That those movies are rated R is just a joke. War of the Worlds is much worse.
For those who don't know, War of the Worlds is a book written by H.G. Wells like 100 years ago. It is about an alien invasion. Aliens land (or rise from the ground in fact), and proceed to exterminate humanity. Cheerful premise.
Now of course this is exactly the same premise as Independence Day, yet the two movies couldn't be more different. In Independence Day big ships positioned themselves over big cities, fired a big laser, and wiped out the whole cities. Horrible to think about, but a very sanitized way to present it. Like a modern American war you can sit back and munch popcorn while watching. Distant and removed from the real people and the real damage being done. That is how the movie presented it too. You never really got up close and were brought face to face with what being exterminated feels like.
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War of the Worlds does that. Instead of sitting in their spaceships, the aliens this time were in huge tripod walkers that moved through cities killing individual people and buildings. They weren't just big flying saucers, they were these grotesque, awkward looking exterminators. Very different feel.
Anyways, the worst parts -- for me -- were the scenes not with the aliens, but with the remaining human population. September 11 showed us the best of humanity in a crisis, War of the Worlds showed us some of the worse. Just some really hard to watch scenes of crowds of people who know they are going to die and throw off the constraints of civilization as they grasp for any faint hope of saving themselves. Brutal behavior and indifference. Not just by the mob, but by Tom Cruise's character too. Moments of heroism were rare.
Moments of levity are not present at all. Its nonstop death, destruction and full on extermination. Very few moments even of pause where the audience can catch its breath. Now in a fast paced (and fun) action movie, that can be alright (sometimes). But in something as heavy as this, boy we needed some breaks. Of course that wouldn't be realistic. Being exterminated is a pretty serious thing.
While the story centered more on a family just trying to run and hide, there were some scenes where we saw parts of the attempt to fight back. But there was no fighting back. Its like trying to fight a US air force and tank corps with blot darts and rocks. Futile.
So yea, not a light happy movie. Yet it is a PG-13. Apparently MPAA doesn't have a rubric for human extermination and the worst of human nature. Though of course if it said the F word -- holy ****, definitely an R. Or showed a nipple. Nipples are evil, certainly. Or if someone's head got chopped off and a 6 foot geyser of blood gushed out. Those are all things that fit under the ridiculous rubrics of the MPAA that win them R ratings. Yet this movie which is far more difficult for me to watch (not a squeamish person) is given a PG-13.
Go figure.
Just get rid of the damn ratings, or revise them to actually provide some information about the movie instead of neat categories that are absolutely meaningless. If I were a parent, and if I were a parent that thought kids should be shielded from certain movies (not really), then I'd much prefer my kids to see some lame Rambo movie, or Schwarzenegger movie than War of the Worlds.
Before I close, one small tangent. I am a bit disappointed in this movie from a youth rights context. Throughout most of the movie the father, Tom Cruise, tried to hide the reality of the situation from his kids. Outside the world is coming to an end, and buildings are being destroyed and people are being killed by the hundreds, and the girl rightfully is pretty freaked out. Especially when her dad starts yelling at her to get in the car, don't ask questions, don't look around, just do what I say. As if that is going to calm her down. She, and especially her older brother, deserved to know what the heck was going on. Not only because there were huge things happening and they had a right to know what, but their very survival would, I think, depend on it. Keeping them in the dark does no one any good.
Ok. Review over.
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