Extras:
Featurettes:
Revisiting the Invasion, The H.G. Wells Legacy, Steven Spielberg and the original War of the Worlds, Characters: The Family Unit,
Previsualization, Four Production Diaries, Enemy: Tripods and Aliens, Scoring War of the Worlds,"We Are Not Alone"
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Director:
Steven Spielberg
(1941, Amistad, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, The Color Purple, Empire of the Sun, E.T.: The Extra-terrestrial, Hook, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Jaws, Jurassic Park, The Lost World: Jurassic Park, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Saving Private Ryan, Schindler's List)
Producers:
Kathleen Kennedy and Colin Wilson
Screenplay:
Josh Friedman and David Koepp
Music :
John Williams
Cast :
Ray Ferrier: Tom Cruise
Rachel Ferrier: Dakota Fanning
Mary Ann: Miranda Otto
Robbie: Justin Chatwin
Harlan Ogilvy: Tim Robbins
Vincent: Rick Gonzalez
Tim: David Alan Basche
Grandmother: Ann Robinson
Grandfather: Gene Barry
In this remake of War of the Worlds,
Tom Cruise plays duff Dad Ray Ferrier making a living as a docker, living in an unkempt house, but he loves his daughter,
Rachel (Dakota Fanning), and son, Robbie (Justin Chatwin), misses his ex-wife, Mary-Ann, and hates her new beau,
Tim (David Alan Basche), with whom she's having a baby.
However, he can make up for all his half-assed parenting when the aliens come to town and short out everything electrical
with a lightning storm to end all lightning storms.
Plot goes out the window here since once the first 12 minutes of introduction are out of the way as it's just crash/bang/wallop
from that point on, with outstanding CGI as the aliens with tripods come to wipe out mankind. And, yes, the original is a
good film but it's been over 50 years since that one and it doesn't hurt to have an updated special effects-laden take on the movie.
And I love the way the CGI blends during scenes, even down to being filmed in a car as the camera tracks around them, and then
pulls in and out of the car as it drives on the road - making it look like there was nothing filming them. It's very subtle
and very clever and such CGI would go missed by a lot of people. Along their journey they come across National Guard members
trying to stop the aliens and also Tim Robbins as a houseowner who, for some unexplained reason - at first, takes in
Ferrier and his family to shield them from the enemy. Quite why no-one else picks up on this offer remains a mystery, though.
Overall, this film is a great look at how civilisation breaks down and is returned to its basic insticts when it can't think of anything else
to do, and it's surprisingly dark for a 12-certificate but if such a thing were to happen, the effect on how we treat each
other is surprisingly prophetic. Oh, and it was amusing when Rachel tells her Dad he should get a TiVo (a bit like a Sky+, but
with far more functionality and which doesn't keep crashing and losing all your programmes whenever it feels like).
The only thing the film could do with is a proper ending, since like the way
28 Days Later
didn't affect anywhere other than the UK, this film doesn't appear to affect anywhere than the US, so it's not as if those
still living are short of somewhere to go. Plus, Spielberg takes a liberty with the fate of one character that really
takes the biscuit - which you'd often expect from a Hollywood film - but especially here because there's no explanation
for it, and it's akin to Robert Shaw turning up at the end of
Jaws
and saying he wasn't dead after all.
The picture looks fantastic in its original 1.85:1 anamorphic ratio and the sound is exceptional with so many DTS 5.1 effects
all over the place, as well as the foghorn sounds as the tripods get ready to do their business. It's a demo disc, for sure!
The extras are basically a large set of featurettes, totalling 164 mins - so almost a full three hours, that tell how the
film came about in all its different aspects, and to name them would by self-explanatory.
Starting with Revisiting the Invasion (7:40), dealing with the reason for what led to this film being made (cue the
9/11 references), for a film that boasts such outstanding effects, as you begin to watch the featurette, it just couldn't
look any more cheap. For a start it's filmed in 4:3 and there are cheesy effects as the names appear onscreen as the cast
and crew chat to camera... or rather just off-camera.
Then we have The H.G. Wells Legacy (6:36), Steven Spielberg and the original War of the Worlds (8:00) - showing why
Gene Barry and Ann Robinson do a cameo, Characters: The Family Unit (13:22) and Previsualization (7:43) - which looks at early
storyboards done by animation whereas Spielberg says he rarely makes preconceptions on films and changes things as he makes
the film.
Next up are four Production Diaries. Two are on set on the East Coast of the USA - Beginning (22:31) and Exile (19:40),
and then the West Coast brings Destruction (27:30) and War (22:21). This is where to come to watch the day-to-day filming
of the 90+ day shooting schedule.
In the final list of extras, we have Designing the Enemy: Tripods and Aliens (14:07), Scoring War of the Worlds (11:58),
both of which do exactly what they say on the tin, and "We Are Not Alone" (3:15) which speculates on whether aliens are
real or not. Overall in this supplemental material, there's a lot of information, but it's a bit dull to listen to the
same old voices rambling on and on and most of what they have to say isn't in the least bit surprising.
There are 24 chapters to the film which is spot on, the menus have some subtle animation which is good, but is accompanied
by very repetitive music which gets on your wick. And subtitles come in 7 flavours: Arabic, Danish, Dutch, English (and hearing
impaired), Finnish, Norwegian and Swedish. One odd thing is that these have black lines either side of the text, pointing out
where they are. Erm... I can see them(!)
DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TXW32R4 32" widescreen TV
connected to either a Creative Dxr2 DVD-ROM player or Microsoft Xbox and
played through a Sony STR-DB930 amplifier.
PC games reviewed by the editor are on:
Since Nov 2005: Intel Pentium D 830 3.0Ghz, 1Gb RAM, 128Mb nVidia GeForce 6700XL, Windows XP
Since Aug 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.66Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb GeForce4 MX440 graphics, Windows XP
Since May 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.6Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb ATI Radeon 9600TX graphics, Windows XP
Since Jun 2002: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, 64Mb ATI Radeon 8500LE
Since May 2000: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, Voodoo 3 3000 AGP
In this remake of War of the Worlds,
Tom Cruise plays duff Dad Ray Ferrier making a living as a docker, living in an unkempt house, but he loves his daughter,
Rachel (Dakota Fanning), and son, Robbie (Justin Chatwin), misses his ex-wife, Mary-Ann, and hates her new beau,
Tim (David Alan Basche), with whom she's having a baby.
Overall, this film is a great look at how civilisation breaks down and is returned to its basic insticts when it can't think of anything else
to do, and it's surprisingly dark for a 12-certificate but if such a thing were to happen, the effect on how we treat each
other is surprisingly prophetic. Oh, and it was amusing when Rachel tells her Dad he should get a TiVo (a bit like a Sky+, but
with far more functionality and which doesn't keep crashing and losing all your programmes whenever it feels like).
The extras are basically a large set of featurettes, totalling 164 mins - so almost a full three hours, that tell how the
film came about in all its different aspects, and to name them would by self-explanatory.