Streaming Availability: Paramount+
"They defeated the greatest power in the world in a couple days. Walked right over us. And these were only the first. They'll keep coming. This is not a war any more than there's a war between men and maggots. This is an extermination."
The opening scenes of Spielberg's War of the Worlds were shot in my hometown, Bayonne, NJ. I know exactly where Ray (Tom Cruise)'s house is, I used to commute over that bridge in his backyard to school in Staten Island. This movie was a big deal back then in my city, I remember they were doing camera tests a block away from my house. We Bayonners (Bayonnites? Do we have a demonym?) were all annoyed when between cuts, the movie implies that you can turn a corner and teleport to the Ironbound neighborhood of Newark, several miles and an entire harbor away. Plus, somehow the family ends on the Staten Island Expressway, a bad idea even in peacetime, now impossible thanks to the alien attack. These are the kinds of Cinema Sins complaints that really matter.
All around, I am disturbed how well War of the Worlds maps onto my life. I was a teenager in 2005, I had a divorced dad living downtown. I remember terrible, awkward nights of staying over his depressing bachelor apartment with my younger sister. We had lots of pointless arguments over nothing. I walked home once just to piss him off.
Also, remember that time aliens nearly conquered the world in Bush's second term? That was weird.
War of the Worlds does have a real, traumatizing event on its mind, and much like Signs, it is the September 11th attacks. Bayonne is not far from Manhattan. You can see the skyline from taller buildings, say the third floor of my elementary school, where I saw one of the towers burning that morning. Everybody in the Tristate Area has their story about that day and how they got home. My mom walked and hitchhiked home because of the traffic jams. A huge smoke cloud hung over New York Harbor for days afterwards. Signs is about the distant fear of watching these attacks on CNN all night. War of the Worlds is about being at Ground Zero, being covered in soot, watching debris float from the sky. Aliens have been representations of our wars since the beginning of this series. How America begins fearing the skies because
we were afraid we were due for the horrors of the Second World War we had escaped. Well, the September 11th attacks are when that happened for
real. You had good reason, finally, to fear what was above you.
It is fitting that Spielberg chose the novel War of the Worlds as his inspiration. He was not the first to adapt this novel, he was not the last, but his version stands alone as a unique nightmare. In 1897, H.G. Wells was terribly prescient about the Total War future to come, he imagined mechanized war from the air destroying every ability of an innocent nation to resist in mere hours. He imagined a Martian race doing to Britain at the height of her empire what Britain was doing all across the planet. In his writings, he directly referenced the 19th century Tasmanian genocide. 9/11 was America's airborne acts of violence coming home. We had ruled the skies for sixty years raining death without meaningful response. And we followed 9/11 by doing yet more war across the Middle East. Only twenty years later when our client governments are bombing hospitals in Gaza and Lebanon, it is clear that terrorism only begets more terrorism. It is disturbing how quickly we forget our own experiences.
Spielberg has another fascination, and that's of course: dads. His works are full of guys who either fail as fathers (Close Encounters of the Third Kind) or are forced by circumstances to become fathers (Jurassic Park). War of the Worlds features Ray, a patented cocky Tom Cruise character, a guy so divorced he's turned his kitchen into a garbage to work on an engine. He has to watch his two kids, Robbie (Justin Chatwin) and Rachel (Dakota Fanning) for the weekend while their mom and step-dad are out on a trip. Ray is irresponsible and blue-collar clearly disconnected with his children and their more affluent lifestyle. One visual metaphor of the divide between father and son is that Ray is a Yankees fan and Robbie has a Red Sox hat, which in 2005, would've gotten that kid punched in face in Bayonne. (We're still not over the '04 playoffs.) Ray is at least capable and knows exactly which magic thing in a car's starter motor you need to replace to get around the alien ETM blast. He can get his kids out of danger, he is properly cynical and prepared for the dog eat dog violence to come. All told, he does a great job under the circumstances, at least until Robbie goes full quixotic teenage jackass and runs up a hill to join the army and gets himself exploded.
In terms of technical execution, War of the Worlds is as good as anything Spielberg has done. These CG effects by ILM still look great. There's great sets later in the movie. There's a lot of long-takes which are clearly enhanced with a digital camera, a lot of impossible camera moves through a windscreens and such. Spielberg gets a lot done with night scenes and big lens flares - JJ Abrams' entire aesthetic is lifted from this era in Spielberg. There's an amazing set piece where Ray walks through the ruins of a crashed Boeing 747 in the suburbs (probably a reference to crash of Flight 93 on 9/11), and that's a real destroyed plane he's walking through on the Universal backlot. The plane is still there if take the tour.
War of the Worlds is an unrelenting movie for most of its runtime. From the moment Ray is escaping the alien lasers to Robbie's foolish death scene, it is practically non-stop action. There's a car chase scene, a terrifying ferry boat attack, and a bitter misanthropic set piece where a gang of survivors kill each other over the one working SUV. The horn sound effect of the alien Tripods is great sound design. War of the Worlds slow down in its second half with Ray and Rachel forced to hide in the basement of a crazed survivor named Ogilvy (Tim Robbins). And just part of the bleakness here.. Ray has to strangle his host to keep him quiet and his daughter safe. Rachel knows her father is in the other room doing murder and trying to not see or hear it. This is not a 9/11 of people coming together and trying to help. It's a total breakdown, grab what you can and run now.
On the aliens. They "Martian-form" our planet, creating a red weed environment that is lifted from the Stephen King's novel, Dreamcatcher. We actually see the aliens, which was probably a mistake. Their design is clearly taken from Independence Day. They're a lot scarier when they're up in the skies operating these invincible death machines, a lot less scary when they're little goblins playing with bicycle wheels and passing around photos. It feels like they're all about to start cackling like the goofballs in Mars Attacks!.
We do need to talk about the ending. The aliens dying from Earth's microbes comes straight from H.G. Wells. Signs did basically the same miracle thing. Independence Day at least got clever by making it a computer virus, so playing with the concept, and forcing the heroes to be proactive to save the planet. Wells is a Victorian so can thank God's wisdom more than we can. That is a little less satisfying in the 21st century where the inevitability of God's plan comes off more forced and corny. Even more miraculous is that Ray's ex-wife is exactly where he told Rachel she would be: Boston. And Robbie is here too!
Somehow. He clearly exploded and died.
Whatever. Don't worry about it. The movie is over.
Morgan Freeman is doing the narration, get your leftover popcorn and go home. I don't think anybody in 2005 wanted an ending as bleak as "Tom Cruise could not mend his relationship with his son and let him die". But let my official position be this: Steve - can I call you Steve? - you should have killed that kid.
Next time! I probably should have covered Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Oh well. Well, I'll do one better: The Fourth Kind!
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