The problem with disaster movies is the fact you always have at least one scene where a character loses it. A scene where they spout how they question what they used to believe in, how they've lost faith, and show them on the brink of giving up (if you're a side character you do give up and die.) It's the scene that's supposed to pass as deep because it talks about issues and beliefs (maybe religion), where a character bleeds their soul in front of the camera. This rendition of War of the Worlds is scene after scene after scene of people I never cared about talking the cliché talk I've seen in other (better) movies.
But through all of its dialogue heavy confessionals, it never resonates as coming from real characters with real fears and concerns. It's the archetype priest (sorry, pastor) whose faith is challenged; the archetype rabid military commander who practically foams at the mouth with his battle obsession; the archetype everyman average Joe astronomer who lives to see the happy ending.
"Scientists win every war" the commander spouts, a valid point worthy of being explored (like many points in the film, I might add), but less than a minute later the film throws it away completely. I guess an elaboration is too much to ask. So we wind up with a series of vague statements that are supposed to pass as character development and provocative themes. It's just amazing that for all its talk the movie barely matches the depths of a Michael Bay action film.
All of the dialogue the characters are forced to recite lacks any real sense of valid observation regarding the real world. Nowhere are the details of everyday life that convince me that these characters genuinely reached this point in their lives, that they came to these conclusions on their own. It all comes across as undeveloped words for unexplored ideas that a writer rushed into a screenplay and into their mouths. It offers nothing more than surface level observations about society, organized religion, governments, the military. For the price you'd pay for the rental, you can probably get a more provocative conversation going over a 1.A.M. meal at Denny's with the regulars.
Unfortunately, a low-budget independent film can't really afford to lose the audience on a plot and character level since they can't afford to give an ambitious project like War of the Worlds the epic scope the effects require. The imagination of HG Wells has proved difficult to recreate on the silver screen, and films based on his novels have a tendency of pushing the boundaries of special effects. It's no surprise this movie cannot compete with ILM's spectacular display of destruction in Spielberg's version. The film just does fine with static shots of the aftermath, featuring nicely done composite shots that have a nice old-school matte painting vibe. The more dynamic effects (the aliens, the war machines), unfortunately, clearly show the budgetary limitations.
But, you know, it's not the lesser quality of the special effects that bothered me . . . it's the changes made to the design of the war machines. The War Machines resembled giant mechanical crabs, which I have to say is the most offensive design to cross a fan of the novel. At least the 1953 movie made an effort to make the War machines look other worldly they would seemingly float and hover as they brought their destruction from city to city and there was a fleeting reference to the tripod nature of them. The charm of the tripod design is the fact that it is alien to earth. Most creatures have an even number of legs: we walk on two legs, dogs and cats walk on four legs, arachnids walk on eight legs what walks on three legs? A six-legged war machine lowers the Wells vision to cheesy monster movie featuring a giant insect.
Lastly the editing bothered me with its lazy fade-to-black transitions between scenes that I already felt had no sense of timing or rhythm and just dragged on. It just felt uninspired, monotonous, and redundant. It was like reading a story that used only simple sentences that never rose above "subject-verb-period" complexity. Editing is an opportunity to accentuate the on screen events, and provide an addition level of narrative depth through juxtaposition of images (which a novel of Wells' caliber requires). But in this movie adaptation, the editing is as interesting as watching a slide show in power point. Fade to black, and fade out with this review.
