The War of the Worlds

Okay, Alien Invasion Reviews are going on again with Steven Spielberg's War of the Worlds.  War of the Worlds is based off the classic book by HG Wells back in the 1900s.  I've read the book and I can personally say that it is very interesting on the take of what an alien invasion on Earth would be like.  It was so realistic, in fact, that when Orsen Welles read it on the radio, people believed that it was really happening.  Mind you, that this around the time when Orsen Welles was still alive, so it happened long ago.  So, nearly a century afterward and Steven Spielberg brings us his take on HG Wells' book.  Spielberg is an already accomplished director.  He brought us classics like, Schindler's List, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Saving Private Ryan, and Close Encounters with the Third Kind.  And he has Tom Cruise as the main character?  Tom Cruise?  What's not to like about Cruise?  He's short, crazy, and believes in aliens.  Yeah, this guy is the definition of awesome.  Unfortunately, this all closes in on them and we're given a disappointing cinematic experience.

War of the Worlds is, as I said in the first paragraph, based on HG Wells book of the same name.  Basically, after a heated divorce from his wife, Ray, played by the Cruise, has lost custody of his kids, but can see them every weekend.  So, for the first 20 minutes of this film we're given the exciting sequences of Ray arguing with his emo, and possibly homosexual son, Rob (played by that idiot who ruined DragonBall).  Then, we see him and his daughter have very boring sequences of talking, which reveal nothing about their characters that we already know.  Finally, after a weird storm, Ray travels to the middle of his city!  Everyone surrounds town, unaware of the attack.  Finally, after breaking from the ground, giant aliens are zapping everyone to death, missing Ray by inches.  So he returns and takes his kids away, packing food of course.  They are set across a journey around the US.   Then, we have our movie!

Elitists of the book will be disappointed by the film's change of location.  Rather than in the streets of London, this film is in America.  That's a nitpick, but as a fan of the book, it disappointed me.  Anyways, a real problem is that nothing happens in the first 20 minutes.  It's just Tom Cruise's life as a parent.  He does nothing that enhances his character or anyone else.  He's just boring.  It doesn't help that Dakota Fanning is in this just looking as stupid as ever.  God, I hate child actors!  They have whiny voices and just cry and complain and ruin films.  It's no different here.  Dakota Fanning just cries to Tom and complains how he's such a bad dad.  So does the emo/homo son, who is practically the worst thing in this film.  He isn't likable at all.  The characters are just so annoying!!!!!  Well, except Tom Cruise!

The action scenes are the only decent thing in this film because they're pretty fun and hectic.  Too bad they are too far apart, forcing us to sit through Tom and friends crying.  Also, this film is horribly unrealistic at a point.  One scene in particular is when the group stumbles upon a plane that crashed in a neighborhood.  Okay, that could happen, but here's where it gets stupid.  First off, there are no bodies and then there are survivors!!!!  Are you serious?  Maybe if the crash didn't look that bad, I could believe it, but no way am I gonna believe that someone survived this crash.  It's just too Hollywood.  Also, the film is just too predictable!  Just when we think emo boy dies (even though we know he won't), he comes back.  Oh, and the aliens all die!  Now, this really did happen in the book, but it was one of the worst parts of the book.  There are no bacteria in Mars, so they all get taken out by a bacteria?  That's such a cop-out.  Okay, that is so stupid!  If there was life on Mars, there should have been some form of bacteria.....You know, I won't even start.

Also, the aliens had alienware planted underneath Earth's surface thousands of years ago to prepare for the attack.  That alone, is enough to warrant a bad score.  So, no one ever noticed the 90 foot tall alien tech when they dug up the roads huh?  Also, why wait so long to overtake Earth?  It would have been much easier if they did back in the 1500s, but apparently they felt it necessary to overtake Earth when the humans have become more advanced.  Also, this is a nitpick, but if those machines were thousands of years old, shouldn't they have much more advanced tech now?  I mean, it would be much easier to take Earth.  Also, if they planted the alienware in Earth, that means they were on Earth, meaning that they should have came into contact with the bacteria that killed them.  So, either the aliens never thought to mention it to their future generations that there is some dangerous bacteria that could wipe them out, or they are immune to the disease.  Also, Cruise seemed very okay with his son running into war.  He didn't even attempt to stop him.  The more I think about it, the more I hate it.

Overall, War of the Worlds is a visceral film, mainly cause of the action scenes.  However, it is ruined by various plot inconsistencies and pure gaps of logic.  It makes no sense why aliens waited thousands of years to conquer Earth.  Also, if I remember correctly, I don't recall seeing any spaceships land.  Therefore, they were on Earth the entire time, meaning that they definitely should have came into contact with the bacteria.  That means, they had to have died from something other than bacteria, but the film said they died....from bacteria.  UH!!!!  It makes my head hurt to try and come up with some reasoning within this film.  The  characters are all annoying, except for Tom Cruise of course.  The plot is idiotic and the aliens are the very same aliens from Independence Day.  Also, word from the wise, if you see Dakota Fanning getting pulled into the alien ship, it's not worth it.

Alien Invasion-A-Thon is killing me.

3/10