War of the Worlds

Among many other highly enjoyable activities on what was really an excellent 4th of July weekend, on Sunday afternoon Jen, Robert, and I took in a matinee of War of the Worlds. I liked it quite a lot actually, just as I suspected I would and in precisely the same way. It was a quintessential Spielberg summer popcorn flick. The man can really make a good summer thrill experience. And, as with this one, sometimes the ending is a bit of a letdown, but in a lot of ways that just speaks to how good what came before it was. The ending here wasn’t that bad, indeed it could have been vastly and very easily improved if things were just even slightly less perfect.

As much as my eyes have begun to get sore this summer from constantly rolling at Tom Cruise’s growing insanity and his “relationship” with Katie Holmes, I find that I like him more and more as an actor. Collateral had a lot of problems, but Tom was convincing. And he’s still the best thing about Magnolia. In this movie, I’ll admit, it was more than a little amusing to see him working at the docks, but after that he inhabited his character quite well. Maybe it’s not such a stretch for him to play a wholly self-involved adult, and maybe his recent shenanigans (love that word!) make it easier to see him as unstable and not as Ethan Hunt. Whatever. He was good for me. Dakota Fanning, though I find her vaguely creepy in interviews, actually seemed like a kid. So that was good.

I actually don’t generally think or talk much about the political background of movies, but there were a number of scenes in WotW that seemed designed to remind the audience of September 11. And there were a few explicit references as well, as various characters wondered if we were being attacked by terrorists. The one that stands out most in my mind is the aftermath of the first alien tripod thing rising from the ground in front of Tom. The crowd is running away terrified and fully aware that their lives are in jeopardy, and yet cannot resist the urge to look behind them as they run, to see this unimaginable sight. I saw many pictures and videos of people doing the exact same thing – running through the ash and haze, but looking over their shoulders – on 9/11. There were also several scenes with bulletin boards of missing people and their photos, which were very reminiscent for me. None of this seemed exploitative to me, though. In fact, this movie acknowledged more than just about any other that I’ve seen since 9/11 the collective anxiety we mostly all still carry. Spielberg exploits that lingering fear to great effect in setting up this movie. In a lot of action thriller type movies, I spend a great deal of time actually thinking about the craft or the CGI, something outside of the story. That wasn’t true in watching WotW. Only in reflection does it occur to me that the CGI was among the best I’ve seen – and part of why I know that is because I hardly ever noticed it as CGI. So, instead of thinking, “Huh, those tripod things look really good,” I was thinking, “Jesus, this is terrifying.” Which pretty much made it worth my $6.50.