War of the Worlds
Over on Scott's blog he has done a nice job of cataloging the pros and cons of War of the Worlds, and I agree with most of his points. I'd like to add a bit by touching briefly on the film's length and, well, inertia. There are some mild spoilers below.
I won't go so far as to say I was actually bored by War of the Worlds, but I would have liked to see a movie that wasn't quite as dominated by its second act. (If you are by some miracle untouched by the concept of the three-act screenplay, preserve your innocence at all costs. Or feel free to read about it here and forever lose the ability to view any movie in any other context.) I've never been one to encourage filmmakers to adhere slavishly to the tenets of the 3-act structure, but since this story does technically have three acts, it might have been nice to see more than simple lip service paid to the bookends. There is room for debate about where the boundaries of each act lies, but to me it felt like the first act lasted about ten minutes. An hour and a half of second act "drama" followed, and the third act wrapped up in a similar ten minutes. The bulk of the film consists of Ray (Cruise) and his family simply running from crisis to crisis. While there are a few moments of honest character drama, they usually come out of the blue and have little (if anything) to do with the previously established character traits of the characters.
One particularly egregious example of this is when Ray's son Robbie decides he wants to run off to witness the glorious combat between the military and the invaders. Ray has to let his son go, which isn't an unusual father-son theme in the movies, but it doesn't make sense in context. Ray has never been a particularly controlling father -- in fact, his practical absence from his son's life makes him about as un-domineering as movie dads can be. Neither do Robbie's actions seem to come from the character we've met in previous scenes. Sure, he resents his father, but seems protective enough of his sister that his decision to abandon her makes him seem particularly cruel.
I suppose that during an horrific alien invasion, people would be bound to do a few things that would be out of character. In a movie, however, the audience is supposed to travel with the characters on a journey that changes them. These characters make abrupt turns off the map that make me want to take the next exit and detour into a different theater. And damn, who gave Tom Cruise the keys?
I won't go so far as to say I was actually bored by War of the Worlds, but I would have liked to see a movie that wasn't quite as dominated by its second act. (If you are by some miracle untouched by the concept of the three-act screenplay, preserve your innocence at all costs. Or feel free to read about it here and forever lose the ability to view any movie in any other context.) I've never been one to encourage filmmakers to adhere slavishly to the tenets of the 3-act structure, but since this story does technically have three acts, it might have been nice to see more than simple lip service paid to the bookends. There is room for debate about where the boundaries of each act lies, but to me it felt like the first act lasted about ten minutes. An hour and a half of second act "drama" followed, and the third act wrapped up in a similar ten minutes. The bulk of the film consists of Ray (Cruise) and his family simply running from crisis to crisis. While there are a few moments of honest character drama, they usually come out of the blue and have little (if anything) to do with the previously established character traits of the characters.
One particularly egregious example of this is when Ray's son Robbie decides he wants to run off to witness the glorious combat between the military and the invaders. Ray has to let his son go, which isn't an unusual father-son theme in the movies, but it doesn't make sense in context. Ray has never been a particularly controlling father -- in fact, his practical absence from his son's life makes him about as un-domineering as movie dads can be. Neither do Robbie's actions seem to come from the character we've met in previous scenes. Sure, he resents his father, but seems protective enough of his sister that his decision to abandon her makes him seem particularly cruel.
I suppose that during an horrific alien invasion, people would be bound to do a few things that would be out of character. In a movie, however, the audience is supposed to travel with the characters on a journey that changes them. These characters make abrupt turns off the map that make me want to take the next exit and detour into a different theater. And damn, who gave Tom Cruise the keys?
2 Comments:
I felt the same way about Robbie popping up at the end of the film, but wasn't going to include that spoiler. :)
Even worse than him showing up at the end, consider what he looks like when he shows up. Consider where he is. Consider that a teenage boy moves much faster than a middle-aged man and a child. How come he hasn't gotten a bath and a change of clothes?
Gripe. Gripe.
But really, I enjoyed the movie quite a bit. Much destruction to warm my little black heart.
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