Not Coming to a Theater Near You

War of the Worlds / USA / 2005

Steven Spielberg’s evolution from a filmmaker concerned with familial dissolution to one who resorts to contrivance incessantly is demonstrated in the inconsistencies between this and Close Encounters. In the latter film, a father is removed from his family, and the final climax is subtextualized in tragedy; here, a father is put in circumstances that inspire him to maintain his, and everyone is together and therefore happy at the end. It’s arranging contrivance after contrivance to make a film. The technical craft on display here is magnificent, it’s just disappointing that Spielberg is better equipped with enlarged animatronic monsters that don’t operate as desired.

by Rumsey Taylor | Source: Dreamworks Video DVD
28 Nov 2005 11:05 AM | Comments (14)

Comments / 14 total / Submit Comment

1. Chiranjit / 28 November 2005 / 1:22 PM / URL

   I have to admit the ending to this film is so weak that I’ve resolved to just skip over it when I watch the film again. There are a few lapses in logic, such as the ridiculously easy path through the highway traffic and the fact that the family minivan survives the plane crash unscathed, but these are all missteps I’m willing to forgive Spielberg for just for the absurd spectacle of the road-trip, which is really uncharacteristic of his films.

2. Rumsey / 28 November 2005 / 1:45 PM / URL

   A misstep I’m not willing to forgive Spielberg for is not having an activated grenade inadvertently thrown in Dakota Fanning’s screaming mouth, somewhere, preferably, during the second reel.

3. Chiranjit / 28 November 2005 / 2:10 PM / URL

   Yeah, Dakota’s screams annoyed me to no end when I watched the film in the theatre (the grenade would be letting her off easy). On DVD they just feel like another piece of auditory chaos, though that might be due to the fact I don’t have a killer sound-system. It’s easier if you just treat her screams as similar to the noises that the tripods bellow out.

4. leo / 28 November 2005 / 3:45 PM / URL

   I love the ending of this movie. What could be more depressing, more deeply cynical, than such a blandly unconvincing happy ending? As my friend Mike (hi, Mike) termed it, it is like meat to the wolves. You want a happy ending, America? Well, here’s your happy fucking ending.

5. strjh02@moravian.com / 5 June 2006 / 2:18 PM

   Love your comment, Leo. I kind of see it as the pseudo-happy ending to put all fake happy endings to shame. That it’s so hollow amidst all the tragedy, death and chaos is almost the point.

   P.S. – What else (aside from screaming) would you expect a pampered 14-year-old-girl who regularly watches Spongebob on TiVo to do when attacked by alien-driven tripods? Anyone, for that matter? I say Dakota gave one of the finest female supporting performances of the year in this film.

6. mark / 5 June 2006 / 7:46 PM

   It really seemed that Steven was busy with another project with this particular production and left it up to the graphics dept to carry the film.

7. rumsey / 5 June 2006 / 8:12 PM / URL

   Sorry folks. I don’t see Spielberg’s brilliant subversion at all. Subversion describes nothing he has ever filmed. Would you apply the same assessment to the bookends of Saving Private Ryan? The most contrived saccharinity imaginable to contrast the its graphic brutality? (I’m not sold, either, on the same appraisal given to the ending of the otherwise faultless A.I.)

   It’s rare – and much more laudable, as far as I’m concerned – when Spielberg is cynical, specifically when he doesn’t repair the family unit at the end of one of his pictures. It is by this measure that I have even a sparing admiration for War of the Worlds’ denouement (the only thing missing from its happy fucking ending is Tom Cruise going up and muscling a tonguey kiss from his former wife—now this may have been as celebratory as when Brody shoots an oxygen tank clenched in the mouth of a great white shark), and for which I consider Close Encounters one of his best films.

8. strjh02@moravian.com / 5 June 2006 / 11:15 PM

   Well, I know I never said it was brilliant – just pointed out that it’s a more of an on-its-head contrast to the bright happy ending everyone thinks it is than it is one outright. The last five minutes are easily my least favorite in the whole movie.

   Haven’t seen A.I. yet, although friends say that Kubrick should be turning in his grave over the ending. And I will agree with you on Ryan – the flag-waving opening and closing felt more like a studio inserted plug for more mainstream popularity than something inherently part of the film. Of course, everyone knows Steven has the kind of power that no studio will ever be able to temper with his movies. Regardless, though, I think his newer works (those that I’ve seen, sans The Terminal) have been so satisfying in what they get right that their slim and minor missteps and indulgances into conventions are easily forgivable.

9. leo / 6 June 2006 / 8:52 AM / URL

   If you’re concerned with Spielberg’s intentions (which, of course, you don’t have to be), you can think of him as (a) a cynical huckster, who imagines that even an implausible happy ending will function as bread and/or circus to the dimwitted masses; (b) a reasonably intelligent person who is trying to do something vaguely interesting (not to mention entertaining and even politically pointed) by playing with otherwise formulaic, commercial pap; or (c) a narratological moron, with no sense of how to end a film but with the most banal of contrivances.

   The first is the prevailing interpretation these days, and the second is the newly fashionable, revisionist version. I waver between these first two, and don’t even find them mutually (or morally) exclusive. In other words, I find that both a and b yield amusing results, as both seem to arise out of deeply cynical philosophies.

   But in light of War of the Worlds and A.I. especially, I just don’t accept Spielberg as the starry-eyed letter “c” that seems to rear its head in something like Hook or The Terminal (which is beyond awful, by the way). The sci-fi films are wholly grim and unforgiving, but for the vague, final, almost perverse glimmers of hope that fail to hold up under any scrutiny. The end of A.I. is certainly more coherent than that of the later film, but it is no more convincingly cheerful: David, the commercial product of artificial familial love, receives reciprocity from an equally artificial simulation, a replacment mother for a replacement child. I don’t find this terribly cozy, and presumably neither did Kubrick who (according to Jan Harlan) devised the ending in the first place.

10. Chiranjit / 6 June 2006 / 10:57 AM / URL

    Though I tend to agree with Leo, I’m pretty sure most of Spielberg’s detractors believe the most conclusive evidence for (c) is that he continues to make films such as The Terminal. It’s extremely tough to argue against.

11. leo / 6 June 2006 / 11:53 AM / URL

    Asked why his sister is a prostitute, Borat replies, “Because she likes to make money.”

12. mark / 9 June 2006 / 7:48 PM

    For us, poor pilgrims, locked into the abscess of time, we can only congrat the happy fuck ending. Mabey we’ve seen too much, perhaps we’ve been around too long: mabey that ending was not intended for anyone other than the 14 year old screaming kid. I’ve seen spielburg at his best, starting with a Columbo episode. It’s hard to watch him go down. I hope he catches a breath and we will see some more. A.I. was a fluke because someone brilliant died. I loved the film. It carried me to the end.

13. conor dunphy / 12 June 2006 / 8:11 AM / URL

    not that this is a fishing expedition, but what about Catch Me if You Can?

14. Rumsey / 12 June 2006 / 8:28 AM / URL

    That’s actually my favorite of Spielberg’s recent output. It’s a wonderful fetishistic fantasy, and contains many images that – although relatively unoriginal – are very well rendered. Specifically, my recommendation is summated in the image of Frank Abagnale Jr. flanked by a team of really hot stewardesses, and it occurs in an era when that was an unusually fashionable occupation. It sort of makes me want to be a pilot.