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// Filed under: Entertainment on Friday July 01st 2005, 4:43 pm So, I saw War Of The Worlds last night (only realising halfway through it that it was actually the opening night). And I thoroughly enjoyed it. Thoroughly. I mean that in the most literal sense of the word, I enjoyed it from beginning to end. It was dark, it was subtle, it was powerful and it was evocative. All this in spite of Tom Cruise playing the main character. Genius, I know. Anyway, back to lavishing praise on said movie. The storytelling was excellent. I was expecting it to be a slightly-better-than-usual-alien-invasion story, but in fact it took the whole “aliens-invade-Earth” schtick and spun it on its head, treating the whole exercise more as a documentary than a movie. It was refreshing to see the effect and the impact of a terrifying and implacable alien invasion on a family already fraught with emotional issues, and watch the way they handle it as best they can in a world already spiralling out of control around them. The special effects in particular were magnificent. Technically they were flawless, but that was not the beauty of them - no, that lay in the fact that they were carefully managed so as to not overpower the movie itself, blending seamlessly into the storyline and enhancing it rather than replacing it. There were only a few minor niggles I had - namely that a man, in fact several, were still able to operate their video cameras after an EMP blast which had disabled every other thing with an electrical circuit. Also that aliens have amazing technology which can vapourise people, level cities, etc, and yet they still rely on a glorified tentacle camera to find people in the darkness of a basement? Surely such an advanced race would have an infra-red scanner of some kind, or a heat-sensitive ocular device. I mean we have such devices, and we’re not capable of building walking tripod-death-machines or traversing the cold void of space to wage war upon another species. But obviously such devices are beyond the reach of this advanced alien race which has built walking tripod-death-machines and has traversed the cold void of space to wage war upon another species. And also that, as to be expected, once aliens started invading in visible force, people just start running like sheep. Why does everybody run in a crisis? Why does nobody huddle in their basements, break out Monopoly and just go for it and wait for the aliens to stop with all the killing already? They all congregate towards highways and main streets and stumble along with their precious belongings, or desperately try to drive somewhere, anywhere, as long as they’re moving. Why? What purpose does it possibly serve? Gathering together only makes it easier for aliens to track, spot and slaughter you all in quick succession, or for a comet to kill more of you in a disaster movie, or for Tom Cruise to convert more of you to Scientology faster. Speaking of which, the movie was totally devoid of thinly veiled Scientology references. I was very disappointed. I wish I could meet some Scientologists. All I have to make fun of is Tom Cruise and John Travolta, and they really do a good enough job of that on their own without me helping. Damn you ridiculous Scientology-beleiving jerks, where are you when I need you to help me form my own laughable cult bent on world domination? Nowhere, that’s where. // 6 Comments
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Tim says:
July 2, 2005 at 12:39 pm
Cronos says:
July 4, 2005 at 10:01 pm
The bald guy your brother knows says:
July 5, 2005 at 9:34 pm
Names!?! What the hell is this? says:
July 7, 2005 at 10:35 am
The amazingly wise bald one says:
July 7, 2005 at 8:15 pm
Ive seen this movie!! says:
July 27, 2005 at 4:55 pm