Scooter Chronicles

Over the course of a couple days, Marcia and I watched “War of the Worlds” starring Tom Cruise. This is the Steven Spielberg production based on H. G. Wells famed book, made even more famous by Orson Welles’ radio broadcast many years ago.

For those of you that are not familiar with the plot of the book, and movie, Earth is invaded by aliens. And quite honestly, in both Hollywood and in print editions, this is just too overdone. Sure, it’s a classic book. But maybe it should have been kept that way. Or the movie kept to the time frame that events in the book happens. After all, we basically had this same thing happen in “Independence Day”, and though that movie was full of flaws, like Amazon.Com reviewer Greg Curtis SAYS at least “ID” was a lot more entertaining with added humor.

To go deeper into this, there were good things about the movie. The special effects, as expected with ILM (Industrial Light and Magic, George Lucas’ company), were amazing. The aliens themselves and their machines were incredible looking, and quite frightening. Also, Spielberg’s idea of the machines already being buried within the Earth, and the aliens being brought to them was a cool idea. I would have liked this to have been elaborated on though, like why were they already there? Of course not knowing adds to the mystery of the movie. Another cool idea was that through this electrical storm that starts the invasion, all electronics including cell phones, lights, TV’s, and even cars stop working. (Though for some reason Cruise figures out what the problem is with the cars without inspecting the car himself, tells his mechanic buddy down the street, and then has a car that runs when no one else does.)

Another thing that I thought was done well was the panic and absurdity of some people during this crisis. Though some of the actions were very extreme, it had a feeling of realism. Given the recent events in New Orleans and other areas having natural disasters, it made me feel that nothing in these areas were overdone in the movie, and maybe could have even been turned up a notch given the event.

I have not read the book, but I know that the movie started with the opening lines of the book, spoken by Morgan Freeman. He also ended the movie, and I am not sure if he spoke the closing sentences. Or if the movie ended the same way as the book. But the way it happened seemed cheesy to me at first. After thinking about it though for a few minutes, I realized I actually liked it. It was simple and not some crazy “MacGyver-like” thing that destroys the aliens. It was bacteria that lives here on Earth that mankind is already immune to, yet the aliens were not. Simple and logical.

The biggest problem with the movie was lack of plot. It basically was Tom Cruise running to Boston to get his kids to his ex-wife’s parents place (where she is at), with his son arguing with him the whole way and his daughter (Dakota Fanning) screaming all the way. Maybe an over exaggeration by me, but that’s the way it felt. Cruise’s character and his kids have too many narrow escapes. At the end he decides that he wants to get caught after his daughter was captured, and ends up destroying the machine with some hand grenades.

I am not a fan of Tom Cruise. The only reason I watch his movies is because he gets roles in good movies. And I wanted to see this mostly because of Spielberg and being a movie based on a story from a classic sci-fi writer. This kind of combo (Cruise, Spielberg, and a classic sci-fi writer … Philip K. Dick) was used in “Minority Report” and it was a great flick. (Though might have even better sans Cruise.) This one had it’s strengths, but was weak in comparison.