Format: DVD from Sycamore Public Library on The New Portable.
I suppose that when I think about it, it’s not terribly surprising that Spielberg did a remake of War of the Worlds. Now, in retrospect, it’s kind of a warm up for Super 8. While the plots are significantly different, there are some similarities between the two movies at least on the surface in that both are alien invasion movies. And, true to Spielberg’s fixation with absent or bad fathers, we’re going to get at least a part of that story in the form of the Tom Cruise character.
Ray Ferrier (Cruise) works a union job and is seen leaving his job site to return home. It’s evidently his weekend with his kids, teenage rebellious son Robbie (Justin Chatwin) and younger daughter Rachel (Dakota Fanning). Ray, we learn is something less than a model parent, and Robbie especially seems to resent the time that he’s forced to spend with his father. After a little bit of an introduction to give us the family dynamic, we dive head-first into the alien invasion that is the bulk of the story. I’ll say this for Spielberg’s version: we don’t spend nearly the sort of time the source material does setting things up. Instead, it’s pandemonium, lightning attacks, and chaos from about half an hour in to almost the end.
