War of the Worlds

War of the Worlds as fairly good. Not brilliant, but quite entertaining, and worth seeing once. It was nothing near as good as the original, though – in setting, in ingenuity, in suspense, or even in pace. I can understand the relocation to the present-day US, which didn’t bother me, and it was very Spielberg to change the protagonist from a lone narrator who sees his family escape on a boat, but is essentially alone, to a father with a strained relationship with his children, forced to protect them, but the story became very limited as a result. There is no way such a movie can devote enough time to character development, and all Spielberg’s emphasis on family strife only made all three of the principle characters seem very irritating indeed. Cruise’s character may have been human, with all his flaws, but rather than making him endearing, there was just enough flaw to make him insufferable, even in his hardships. The son really should have died, and the daughter was very irritating, but Spielberg needs his happy ending, so I saw why they were included.

Sadly, it meant that the episodic nature of the book was sacrificed for action. Yes, there was an overlong episode in a basement which condensed the ideas explored with Nathaniel the preacher and the optimistic soldier, but without the frenzied madness and suspense of the former or the poignant optimism against all hope of the latter. But Spielberg’s worse mistakes are these: firstly, showing the Martians. They are so much more powerful as an unseen presence, flawless and machinelike in their great tripods, ideal in a strange and unpleasant way. Secondly, including an action sequence where Tom Cruise is harvested, only to place a grenade in the innards of a fighting machine and having it blow up. If it was that easy, surely they would have realised sooner and started letting crack squads of soldiers with grenades get harvested. The Martians no longer seem undefeatable after that, which is greatly to the detriment of the story.