Review of War Of The Worlds (Special Edition) (Two Discs)

Introduction

Let me start this review with an apology. I`m one of those sad souls for whom HG Wells`s War Of The Worlds immediately conjures up Richard Burton doing his fruitiest narration and that dum-da-dum-dum theme. That album overrides both Orson Welles panicking the Eastern Seaboard with his Halloween radio broadcast and George Pal`s manta-ray flying saucers going shicka-shicka-shick over Gene Barry and Ann Robinson`s heads.

It took Signor Spielbergo about thirty seconds past Morgan Freeman`s sonorous prologue to dispel memories of the other versions. The War Of The Worlds is a spanking good adventure story by David Koepp based loosely on HG Wells`s classic novel. It is a road trip for one man and his two kids from New Jersey to Boston Mass., precipitated by alien invasion of planet Earth. Like the source material, it is a story about one man`s survival in the face of Armageddon, and thankfully the story stays true to the spirit and ultimate denouement of Wells`s novel.

Curiously, the ending of the story upset a number of reviewers on the film`s original release as being too "convenient" or "hackneyed". All I think it proved was their need to read more books.

Tom Cruise headlines the picture and puts in a great performance as the blue-collar crane-driver big-kid-at-heart Ray Ferrier who has his kids over for a week while his ex wife visits her parents in Boston. He grows through the movie, and subsequently grows on you as a character, which is a pretty neat trick and demonstrates Cruise is a much better actor than some people give him credit for. A stand-out moment for me is when he and his daughter, exhausted and at the end of their tethers from a couple of days of sheer hell settle down in a dank basement for the night and she asks him to sing her a lullaby. Tears come to his eyes as he admits he doesn`t know Lullaby and Goodnight, or even Hushabye Mountain, but he quavers his way through two bars of My Little Deuce Coupe.

You see, that`s the thing that really sets this movie apart from Spielberg`s other recent (and somewhat disappointing) works. He`s really back on form with his lovely little character observations. It`s the characters that drive this movie, not the whiz-bang special effects (although they are really special in this movie).

Dakota Fanning as Rachel, Ray`s ten-year-old born worrier of a daughter owns the picture. This blonde barrel of neuroses could in the hands of a lesser juvenile actress have been a right royal pain in the backside, but Ms Fanning manages to imbue the character with much audience sympathy. Much of the time all she has to do is cry and scream, unless she`s screaming and crying, but given that this small girl sees things that battle-hardened warriors should never hope to see, she`s quite within her rights.

More annoying is Ray`s elder child, son Robbie (played by Canadian actor Justin Chatwin). He seems to take a delight in rebelling against everything his father stands for as he perceives him as an a-hole, and simply confirms the adage Like Father Like Son. He flips out on the way to Boston, wanting to make some brave gesture against the invaders with the columns of US Army reserves futilely trying to hold back the march of the tripods.

Tim Robbins puts in a broodingly sinister performance as Harlan Ogilvy, Ray`s initially perceived ally at the farmyard rout. Driven insane by what he has seen, Ogilvy is a danger to himself as well as Ray and Rachel. He has a plan to attack the tripods from beneath (armed with his single shotgun), having tunnelled to Boston from the farmyard with just his shovel. There is a chilling scene where Rachel sings "Hushabye Mountain" (from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang) to herself while Ray has to deal with the completely barking and potentially dangerous Ogilvy.

Most people will watch this movie for the Special Effects, and the team that put them together can be justifiably proud of what they`ve accomplished. Led by Dennis Muren, a combination of CGI, miniatures and practical effects come together seamlessly to depict the invasion from another planet. The extremely short shooting schedule for the movie makes these achievements all the more astonishing. Special mention needs to be made of British stunt coordinator Vic Armstrong and his team on the amazing Heat Ray sequence which can simply be described as "Wow."

Video

Impeccable. Presented anamorphically in the original widescreen theatrical aspect ratio of 1.85:1, the movie looks magnificent. The colour palette changes through the movie and the transfer matches this perfectly. Some sequences are bleached out to look cold and overexposed, others are richly saturated to contrast the Red Weed against the green of mother Earth. As I`ve said, the special effects are seamlessly integrated into the movie, and executed with the sure hand one is growing to expect from ILM and uber-effects-chief Dennis Muren.

Audio

The movie comes with soundtrack options of both Dolby Digital 5.1 and DTS. Both give your amplifier a serious workout, with the DTS option as usual offering the edge in sheer grunt. The soundtrack is a delight to listen to, with John Williams presenting a glorious symphonic score. While the tripods don`t bellow "Ulla" like they do in the book and Jeff Wayne`s album, they do give a chilling metallic honk every so often that raises the hairs.

Features

The movie comes as a two-disc set, with the movie as a plain-vanilla offering on the first and all the extras on the second. This strategy means that the movie comes with an optimised video bandwidth and plenty of room for the Dolby Digital 5.1 and DTS soundtracks. Yak-track-phobic Mr Spielberg spares us any audio commentary insights, and the only extras on the movie disc are the multilingual and English HOH subtitles.

The Special Features disc contains a suite of short featurettes made by Spielberg documentarist supreme Laurent Boisereau. Most of these run between 8-10 minutes, while the video Production diaries run to 20-odd minutes apiece. All are fascinating behind-the-scenes pieces and butt-kissing is kept to a minimum (although we make allowances for Dakota Fanning because of her age). The first featurette, "Revisiting The Invasion" sets up the whole shooting match by looking back at the previous screen version of the story and forward to the new Spielberg version. It lasts about seven and a half minutes and features quite a bit of footage from the 1953 movie. The second featurette, "The HG Wells Legacy", introduces the grandson and great-grandson of the author and some fascinating family observations and insights. "Steven Spielberg and The Original War Of The Worlds" looks back to George Pal`s 1953 version of the story, starring Gene Barry and Ann Robinson. The two actors both make cameo appearances in the movie as the youngsters` grandparents in Boston. "Characters: The Family Unit" looks at the characters of Ray, Rachel and Robbie and the actors` insights into their characters. "Previsualisation" is a look at the growing trend for filmmakers to use CGI previsualisation to storyboard and plan movies. Steven Spielberg explains how George Lucas got him into previs as a tool. "Designing The Enemy" goes into the design of the invaders and their machines. There are four longer Production Diary featurettes about the phases of production and pieces on John Williams` score and his contribution to the project, and a wrap-up piece comparing WOTW to Spielberg`s earlier pictures ET and Close Encounters.

Conclusion

I`d had reservations about this movie. I`d heard some negative press about it and I`d been disappointed by some of Steven Spielberg`s other recent works. Boy, was I ever wrong. I had a total correctness deficit. The War Of The Worlds is a cracking good movie and an excellent DVD package. The movie itself is both a wonderfully satisfying story and a feast for the eyes. The supporting disc is full of trivial goodness and fascinating film facts that might not satisfy hardened film students but certainly kept this reviewer amused.