Spielberg's War of the Worlds was on TV last night, and I hadn't seen it again since it came out in 2005. (I wonder if I have any readers today who were remember my 2005 comments on it. Probably not.)
Anyhow, I have to say again: what a creepy, disturbing, yet quite brilliantly directed movie it is. Yes, it ends abruptly, and via a means which makes little sense now compared to the time when the book was written. I assume that Spielberg and his writers just couldn't come up with an updated variation on the idea. (That was the one - the absolutely only - slightly clever thing about Independence Day. It was a virus that was the aliens downfall, but a computer virus, not a biological one. Unfortunately, that such a crap movie had recently used that updating trick presumably prevented Spielberg's writers from using it.)
While the movie creeped me out again, I was able to concentrate on the direction a little bit more last night. I'll say it again: Spielberg just blows away all the jittery camera, let's-create-hyper-action-by-ultra-fast-editing action directors of today. You know exactly what's going on, and can understand the sequences clearly. He is excellent with tension; he can make Tom Cruise act well.
Enough said? Yes, for now.
2 comments:
Cruel. I don't think he's a "great" actor by any means, but in the right vehicle, he's competent and convincing enough.
Every time a War of the Worlds movie comes out I'm disappointed. They all seem to believe that they can't stick to the original book.
But the original book is brilliant, perfectly composed for movie adaptation. There is plenty of scope for big budget special effects, cinematic pacing, and a wonderful sense of dread and hopelessness that would perfectly suit Hollywood's default anti-war sensibility.
And yet the movies keep shunting it into the present, adding storylines, changing characters and generally screwing it up. I'd pay a lot to see a proper movie version with the same story, the same characters and the same 19th century setting as the original book. With a decent budget it'd be enthralling.
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