War of the Worlds.

General, Movies, Reckons

Went and saw War of the Worlds on the megascreen last night, and let me tell you…

While this is an old (old!) story, which many people probably already know the outline of, I don’t want to spoil anything for the most super ignorant out there, selecting the blank bits below should reveal what I consider most likely to be spoilers.

*** There are spoilers here, if you don’t want to know what happens, you’ll get a face full of ruination! ***

I haven’t watched the old old movie for a long time, so while I of course remember the surprise twist at the end, I don’t remember much of the rest of the story, so I don’t know how much this diverges from the original… But so the fuck what? It rocks!

Amazingly, Spielberg manages to make the kooky Mr Cruise seem like a real guy, freaking the hell out, really confused and scared, and totally fixated on saving his kids from these monsterous blood sucking alien invaders.

He’s so human and vulnerable, I could sort of imagine myself doing many of the same things. Though I probably would have been straighter with the kids about the alien invasion they were fleeing from, with the death rays, exploding buildings, tripods climbing up out of the ground, etc.

Speaking of the death ray, that was by far the scariest death ray I’ve ever seen, what with the arbitrariness of it, the whole f’toomp thing, with the exploding body just leaving clothes fluttering in the air. That was… Awesome… Scary.

I guess I’m getting ahead of myself… The real coolness started after the storm (which was awesome in itself, but only due to the reaction of the characters, hiding under the table and so on) when our man Ray goes for a walk and finds his way to the cracked up intersection… I thought the whole crowding around thing was a bit strange, but fine… But when the tripod started to rise, slowly cracking the ground, and the nearby buildings, then when there was that big surge and the ground sort of collapsed and then jumped up again… That was really, just… Super awesome.

What a terrifying scene, as the crowd panicked and started running… With people not being picked off just for being slow, stuck at the back of the pack, but almost randomly no matter how fast they were running, no matter if they’d run to hide in a house or a shop… *f’toomp* *flutter*.

Now, a lot of other stuff happened, and you’ll need to watch it to see all of that, I’d just like to get onto the lame and the good now, rather than go through anything resembling a play-by-play…

The weirdest, most lame, most inexplicable character, I thought, was Robbie… Just what the fuck was wrong with that kid? I mean, he was fine when he was just a dumb teenager at the beginning of the movie, but what the fuck was he doing trying to jump a ride with the national guard? And why the hell was he all "please dad, I have to see it, I have to watch, let me go." I’ve got to tell you, I would have smacked him one and dragged him down the hill away from the artillery, soldiers & tanks on the ridge overlooking (what, Boston?).

Oh, but wasn’t it awesome when all the choppers arrived and started letting rip with their Hellfires, and the jets that blasted overhead launching their own tasty little missiles.

So, let me quickly sum things up.

  1. Characters: cool, except Robbie.
  2. CG: awesome.
  3. Sound design: awesome (that huge horn that the tripods used, I want one on my RVR).
  4. Alien ships: Scary. w00t.
  5. Aliens: The rear leg was a little bit strange, but on the whole they were very very cool. The CG really was extremely nice.
  6. Rocking?: You bet.

Oh, and I couldn’t help myself but have a gigantic bucket of Starbucks White Chocolate Mocha… Soooo good.

Bored with writing this now, gonna have me some rissoles.

Goodnight, nurse.