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Title: | War of the Worlds |
Score (out of 10): | 5 | | REVIEW: | This remake of a remake of a remake is different than it’s previous versions apparently in that it focuses less on the mass mayhem, and more on how the end of the world effects Tom Cruise. Now, it’s release was accompanied by a lot of media coverage on his love of Katie Holmes and Scientology (not necessarily in that order.) Scientology claims that aliens were sent to earth 95,000,000 years ago and destroyed by Hydrogen Bombs. The plot of War of the Worlds is not to far off from this except that they left there cars parked under the earths crust, and some of their ancestors have come back to kill us.
Tom Cruise handles this with a lot of macho, as he does most things. He creeps up close to the massive holes in the earth to get a peek. He speeds down highways running away from the destroying machine. He displays bad parenting skills in spite of invading aliens. And, this is a spoiler, he lives through it all.
Now the highlight of my viewing will not be repeated by you unless you have already seen it, because we saw this on opening night in a packed theater in Revere. The basic dramatic tension comes not from a fight against the aliens, but rather a road trip from New York to Boston. Much like the movie “The Day After Tomorrow” the disaster movie genre seems to have morphed with the road trip movie. Tom and his daughter (a wonderful Dakota Fanning… who, I know I am going to feel guilty about some day when she becomes a drug addicted former child star… I contributed to that with my praise), they finally arrive in Boston, and a round of Boston pride swept the theater. As we see that Beacon Hill is spared, the crowd in Revere celebrates, once again proof that we are better than New York.
Overall, the movie is a spectacle that is worth seeing if you have stadium seating. There is not much story, and the ending is less than satisfying. A lot of reviews reflect on how dark the movie was, but that is only when you compare it to Spielberg’s other alien flicks “ET”, “Close Encounters”, and “AI”. It could have been much darker if it had killed off anyone that it generated sympathy for, such as Tom himself. However, during the era of Tom and Katie, that may have been just what everyone was hoping for.
. | | Best Quote | Ray Ferrier: They're not from around here. Robbie Ferrier: You mean they are from Europe? |
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