War of the Worlds

[maharetr]

I thoroughly enjoyed this. I could cope with the suspense and the bits that could have been gross-out gory the camera discreetly turned aside from. (I can cope with seeing people vaporised, I just don't like seeing people staggering around all bloody and badly hurt). The acting was flawless, and the special effects were fantastic.

There were Bad Bits. chaosmanor and I were cowering through quite a bit: I cowered during the fight over the car, for example, and the ferry especially (Mythbusters have proved you don't get sucked down by a sinking ship! Just had to randomly mention that), but the bits in the basement weren't so bad. I was intrigued by the fact that the answer was not to fight (the aliens), more to weed out the threats (the nutty guy). In terms of actual horror moments, the scarecrow mask from Batman Begins takes the cake, hands down. I was captivated by the aliens themselves -- they were curious: they spun the wheel and looked at it, and were startled when the bike crashed to the floor.

Getting to the critique part of the critique: the movie itself was fantastically well done, but dare I say it suffered from lacking source material? The thing that made the radio adaptation so fucking scary, I think, is that it didn't need to have closure. As it stands: aliens turn up, kill maim destroy, then just … die. If they'd been planning this for millions of years, like the nutty guy said, surely they would have also checked for something like that?

I also got stuck on the gender roles: Father having no authority over his children is Bad (because the narrative of traditional masculinity demands that to be a Man, he must have authority and dominate), sons have to be allowed to go free and independent ("Dad, you have to let me go.") while daughters are to be carried home to mother. It could be argued that this is just an age thing (son 17, daughter 10), but I suspect a 17 year old daughter would be by dad's shoulder walking home. And home? Was, like, intact and everyone was clean and well dressed and smiling and totally untraumatised. One of the other things that I loved was the fact that they'd been on the run, terrified, for days and they looked it: they were grubby and they looked like they stank. They get points for that. :) The review sounds more negative than I actually feel, but like stephen_dedman said, no one applauded this one, and we left before the credits finished rolling. It was a well executed movie, but it didn't stay under my skin like other movies did. (Going home from The Quiet American had me quite sure that things were going to blow up, and Momento left me dazed for hours. I drove home just fine from this, evne though alone in the car time is a pretty perfect for tripods to start stamping their way down the road. :D

Comments

[sarren.livejournal.com]

MORE HONKING SPOILERS




I disagree that the 17 year old daughter would have been walking home next to dad due to gender stereotyping the way I assume you meant it. I assume that very few girls would demand to throw themselves to certain death because it's just *stoopid* but it is a fact that a lot of young men whether because of testosterone or the way that war is glorified/patriotic, or a combination of both, do think that way. I think if the hypothetical girl had demanded that right that Ray would have been forced to make the same choice.

I agree that the ending with the smiling happy people and the happy ending sucked.

I don't think it needed 'more source material' I think the point was a POV from a terrified man fleeing for his life. And was completely engaging.

The scenes with the car were terrifying and I don't understand why you think they were Bad.

I didn't see anyone get sucked under, I saw people plummetting under from great heights. But Jody says she's read survivors' accounts of having to kick and fight to keep from being pulled under. *shrug* We can argue about it on Sunday.

[maharetr.livejournal.com]

I mean Bad as if in Good. (Because that totally makes sense) bad as if in "cannot watch!" terrifying, which means totally realistic which means excellent movie making? :).

One review I read called the POV "street level" (aka family running for their lives) which does make it utterly compelling, but the storyteller/listener in me yearns to know the whys of "why did they come?" and "they just...die?" I in no way shape or form claim to be an authority on any of the War of the World versions, but as far as I know, because all the texts were told from "street level" we never really find out in the first place. Not a bad thing, as it actually probably wouln't have fitted realistically with the narrative, but a niggle nonetheless.