WAR OF THE WORLDS 2005

WAR OF THE WORLDS 2005
By Ken Leicht

The remake epidemic has continued its rampage through Hollywood unabated and nobody seems to be able to stop it. However, when it was announced that Steven Spielberg was going to remake War of the Worlds with no less than Tom Cruise starring, one couldn’t help but wish for it to be great. On this score, the film does not disappoint.

What makes this version of War of the Worlds work, like some of the other better, recent remakes, is that it is not a straight remake as much as it is a re-imagining. Spielberg and writer David Koepp decided to forgo all the end of the world film clichés (military and scientist characters, shots of landmarks getting wasted) and decided to focus on the plight of the common man as he struggles with an alien invasion. Sort of a blue collar sci-fi horror movie if you will.

Tom Cruise plays Ray Ferrie, a divorced New Jersey dock worker. When his ex-wife (Miranda Otto) goes off to spend the weekend with her new beau, Tom is left sitting the kids; his estranged son (Justin Chatwyn) and his young daughter (Dakota Fanning). It’s not long before the strange occurrences being reported on TV in the background come to roost nearby. A freak lightning storm scares Ray and his daughter out of their wits. When Ray goes to investigate the site where lightning struck almost twenty times, he soon finds out first hand, what it’s like to be on the wrong end of an alien invasion as the evil war machine rises up out of the ground and blasts everyone around him to ashes.

The rest of the film has Tom and his family fleeing the war machines and trying to get along. While Ray tries to just keep his family out of harm’s way, his son Robbie wants to join the fight. There’s not too much more to the story than this.

Spielberg wisely chooses the realistic approach. Some of the best effects ever have the tripods really looking like they are there marching through the city. And all of the acting is of course top notch. Tom Cruise remains untouchable as the biggest star of modern times.

The film echoes the original film, the book and even Orson Welles’ broadcast from 1938. There have been some criticisms of the film’s logic: a path thru the freeway to drive on, a camera that mysteriously works when nothing else will, etc. But it all fits into the film’s dream logic. It plays like a nightmare. A very real one. One that could REALLY happen. Let us hope that nobody is out there in the blackness of space watching our planet with envious eyes.