All is not Wells

Noel Vera

Steve Spielberg's "War of the Worlds" is a botched job, and not just
because Ebert, who can be counted on to miss the point, thinks it
lacks the "zest and joyous energy" one expects from Spielberg. If
Ebert bothered to go back to H.G. Wells' novel, he'd find little
zest or joyous energy to be had from anyone in that book except
maybe the Martians--and they're too sickly and weak to show all that
much.

The film starts off promisingly enough; we get an ominous opening
speech from Morgan Freeman, who can be counted on to deliver in an
authoritative, godlike voice a description of the Martians
as "intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic" (perhaps the most
memorable single line in the book). Later we get hints and
intimations of the Martians' coming, and Spielberg handles these
scenes the way he handled the shark (or lack of it) early on
in "Jaws"--that is, with consummate skill, giving us evidence of
their approach without actually showing the creatures.

Tom Cruise playing a New Jersey dockworker is about as believable as
Arnold Schwarzenegger playing governor (you can't believe what
you're seeing, but there you are); Cruise is at least able to make
his failure at marriage and fatherhood halfway believable by
adopting an immature, arrogant persona, and it's fun to watch him
try bull his way through his ex-wife and children's skepticism with
swagger and misplaced confidence. When the Martians rear up out of
the ground and start shooting, however, the entertainingly abrasive
cluelessness disappears, and we get sensitive Cruise, the one who
bothers to sing his daughter to sleep and who is able to down not
one but two Martian tripods, "Mission Impossible" style. Spielberg
and scriptwriter David Koepp looked as if they knew what they were
doing, knew how they could update Wells' novel and give it a
contemporary texture without violating the novel's spirit, but when
Super Cruise takes over, all bets are off. Wells told us that we
were being perilously presumptuous if we think we sit on the top
rung of the evolutionary ladder; the film seems to be telling us
that with a belt full of grenades, a couple of rocket launchers, and
a Hollywood celebrity to lead the way the Martians are doomed.

Koepp's script makes other changes, not always for the best. Turning
the tripods into buried equipment, part of a plan that has been
hatching for eons, runs counter to Wells' implication that the
Martians are invading out of desperation, out of a sense that their
own resources on Mars are all but depleted (you can't help but
wonder: if the machinery had been there all this time, why couldn't
the Martians invade when we were more manageable--say, the Stone Age
or earlier?). Also, the blood mist that feeds the Martian's red
plants feels more like a parody of their original intentions (in the
novel, they inject living creatures' blood directly into their own--
a gruesome image that for some unfathomable reason is softened
here). And the flesh-eating ray the Martians spray about
indiscriminately is almost laughable, it's so ludicrous: the people
run, the tripods turn, and zap! GAPwear a-rainin' on your head…

Some of the references to 9/11, terrorism and the Holocaust help
bring Wells' lessons home; others only serve to confuse or dilute
the message. Scenes like the struggle for Cruise's vehicle, the
burning train, and the overturning ferry (as someone noted, a far
more convincing sea disaster than Cameron's digital recreation
for "Titanic") are indelible images of war and chaos; I've already
mentioned the floating clothes (a reference, I suppose to the piles
of clothing the Jews left behind when they entered the concentration
camps) and the misuse of human blood on Martian flora (why would the
Martians come all this way to procure a good brand of fertilizer?)
as less successful examples.

The Martians are far healthier versions of Wells' creatures; what
made Wells' Martians so unsettling was that they were meant to be
ourselves, only with certain tendencies exaggerated, or more
evolved, and they were clearly more vulnerable in certain aspects as
well (foreshadowing the novel's conclusion), pale octopi that
wriggled helplessly in our heavier gravity and denser air. No such
shock of recognition and disgust when confronted with Spielberg's
Martians; if anything, they more closely resemble the more clueless
aliens from Roland Emmerich's "Independence Day" (who are so dumb
they made their computer systems compatible with ours).

The scene at the house seemed interminable--more the fault of
Cruise, I suspect, whose company is even less tolerable at close
quarters, than Tim Robbins, who comes in to inject a much needed
dose of dramatic skill as Ogilvy, a half-crazed survivor. Robbins
with his saucer-sized stare and slack jaws is an altogether more
human presence than the beady-eyed Cruise; you can see him play the
lead role with far more persuasiveness and authority (Why make this
movie with Cruise anyway? Surely Spielberg's name is enough of a
draw?). He is, however, a far less potent figure than the novel's
curate, a man so full of illusions about the power of human
institutions and of humanity's place in the universe that the
Martian reign can only drive him to insanity--but I suppose
Spielberg knew enough of current trends in American culture to be
leery about direct attacks on Christianity, even if it's Wells'
attacking and not him. You do wish he had the balls, though.

Spielberg's film is in some ways close in spirit to Wells' book (the
scenes of chaos and massacre), in other ways a betrayal (the
Martians' improbable tactics; Cruise' even more improbable heroics).
George Pals' 1953 version made many changes, but knew enough not to
give the humans the upper hand, not even for a moment (Wells did
allow one warship to crash into some tripods--but made it clear this
was a defiantly suicidal gesture). Still, the definitive adaptation
for me is probably Orson Welles' 1938 radio play--a broadcast so
chillingly realistic it caused a nationwide panic (and afterwards,
nationwide outrage). It's unfair I'm sure to compare a film to a
radio show, but listening to that broadcast and to the announcer's
first descriptions of the odd happenings in the Martians' crater--
the urgency, the immediacy of it--the hairs on the back of my neck
stood up, despite knowing it's an old recording, despite knowing it
was mere fiction. Never happened even once in Spielberg's movie.

7/15/05

(Comment? Email me at noelbotevera@...)