Movie | War Of The Worlds

Ok, first up I’m assuming that most people already know the basic story, so I’m not gonna worry about putting spoilers in here.

In 1975 Steven Spielberg invented the ‘Summer Blockbuster’ genre with Jaws. Whilst most summer blockbusters occur in winter for us lucky Kiwis, the blockbuster season should be a well known phenomenon for all movie goers, as movie studios fall over each other trying to get the best release for their blockbuster thrill ride.

But in recent years, sure fire hits have missed the mark and cinema ticket sales have been steadily falling. Movie studio’s have been blaming movie piracy for this down turn, but that’s just wishful thinking. Most people will recognise the slump for what it is – there’s a lack of really good movies recently, that added with rising ticket prices, the grotty state of most cinema complexes and the rise of home theatre and the drop in DVD prices all add up to one thing: falling ticket sales.

So what makes WOTW so good? Well I’ll be honest, I decided to give the local Village Cinemas in Manukau a miss – the place is in need of a complete make over. The joy of going to the movies has long gone from that place. Instead I gave Berkley Cinemas a go.

All I can say is wow – welcome back to room dominating huge cinema screens of my youth. The screen was huge. The seats were impressive and the sound sharp. Ok, so it wasn’t perfect (there were huge problems whilst the trailers were being played) and I’d like to see how it measures up in about 5 years. But hell, it gave me back a love for going out to the movies.

So possibly the venue made the movie bigger than it is, but I’m guessing it’s the return of the true Summer Blockbuster. It had everything going for it. Based on a great story is a good start, the story was given a modern do over. The acting was great – Ok, I don’t really like Tom Cruise, but he rocked in Collateral, and he did a good job in WOTW. And then there’s my man Tim Robbins, playing a flipped-out conspiracy theorist that plays a key role in the story.

But story line and acting alone can’t produce a blockbuster – as with jaws there has to be believable special effects. WOTW has awesome CGI by the truckload, all done in a gritty, realistic way. It also has that other compulsory component: the freak me out time and time again factor. This is one hell of a ride. Sure the movie slows down form time to time, but the War kicks off within the first 15 minutes, and once those badass aliens come up out of the ground, they are constantly there, if not visually, then they can still be heard or felt. It’s a scary ride.

Ok, spoiler warning, I’m about to give away the well known ending and a not so well known part of the plot.

The ending was great, stayed true to the original, and the voice over by Morgan Freeman was great. The unstoppable alien force was stopped by a common organism that as Freeman states, was created by God just to ensure the continued survival of man. Now this is cool on two different levels: Firstly we have a Hollywood blockbuster where God is given the credit for saving mankind, and in the same instance we have Hollywood blockbuster that doesn’t have America saving the world, all over again. Did you hear me? It’s an American movie where the superiority of Americans over every other country, saves the world. God did.

But there was another way to stop the aliens that our all American hero discovered, and I’m not sure how the movie would have turned out had this theme been explored more. But at one point in the later stages of the movie Tom Cruises character is captured by one of the alien machine as a kind of fuel source, and though he is saved at the last minuet by some very Finding Nemo team work, he was prepared by destroy the alien machine by a method of warfare most feared by Americans (and more recently, Londoners): The suicide bomber. Tom just happened to have a couple of grenades on him, and as he was being sucked up into the machine, he pulled the pins. When he got pulled back out Nemo style, he left the grenades in the machine and boom – the only human way to kill the killing machine was discovered – it’s weakness was laid bare.