Everyone Was Right About War of the Worlds, Apparently

July 30th, 2005 Posted in Other Reviews

I finally got a chance to see War of the Worlds tonight, a mere 200 weeks after it opened. This is how close I am to the cutting edge of the nation’s zeitgeist, folks. While others might waste their precious time going to “see” a movie and forming an opinion on it in the first week—foolishness!—I prefer to squat safely on the sidelines, waiting for enough time to pass that I’ve gotten at least three dozen armchair reviews from those around me before exposing myself to the theater experience.

Of the three dozen armchair reviews I’ve gotten for WotW, none have been especially kind. Even when chatting to my girlfriend on the phone prior to the movie, I overheard one of her friends say “He’s going to War of the Worlds? Why?”

Eerily enough, all of the armchair reviews had been critical of the film in pretty much the same three basic areas:

1.) The movie starts off awesome;
2.) It starts to smell when Tim Robbins shows up;
3.) The ending’s retarded.

Armed with this knowledge, as well as at least eight glasses of beer guzzled with friends at a nearby pub, we all figured tonight was as good a night as any to go for, as they say, an “evening Cruise.” (Actually, I suppose no one says that. That’s probably for the best.) Additionally, other forms of non-alcoholic substance may or may not have been smoked prior to our screening — leaving yours truly with a nice all-over body-buzz, with nothing but good tidings and joy for the planet in general. If ever there was a time for a director to scoot me into a theater and project images at me, it was now — I would have cheerfully given House Party 2 or Weekend at Bernies a thumbs-up, so zen was I with the film-viewing experience in general. “I’m just happy to be here!” might well have been my pullquote on the poster.

Those of you who’ve read my reviews of, well, anything, might be hesitant to believe how eager I was to savor any movie shown to me. I have, after all, pretty much pissed on everything for the last three years on this website. Keep in mind, though, that I was deliriously stoned. Plus I’ve always been a big fan of H.G. Wells’ stuff in general. He’s one of the godfathers of science fiction—what Tolkein did for fantasy, Wells did for invisible men, time machines and alien attacks. What wasn’t to like?

This was the extent of the enormous cosmic bear hug I was wrapping around the planet tonight — at one point I was sitting in the theater during the previews, thinking to myself, “Man, that Transporter 2 looks like a bit of alright.” Kids, I was willing to watch Transporter 2. Dope is for dopes. You heard it here first.

I had similar feelings about pretty much every trailer shown to me, actually—and this being 2005, there were damn plenty of them. Some Cameron Crowe movie with Orlando Bloom and Kirsten Dunst illicited kind thoughts: “Ah, the Jerry Maguire guy. That should be enjoyable. I would watch that.” King Kong: “Jack Black, Lord of the Rings, giant monkeys. Man. I would watch that.” The Chronicles of Narnia: “Big lions, armies, snow, kids, something, something else. Man. I would watch that.” That Colin Farrell-goes-to-America-and-meets-Native Americans movie: “Man. That looks like a laughable pile of ass.” (No amount of grass exists on the planet to make that look good, sorry.)

Then War of the Worlds started, and I let it wash over me. Let me tell you, I was captivated. “I have no idea what all those idiots are talking about,” I thought. “This is magnificent!” The movie hummed along at such a breakneck pace, weaving its characters into the action and building the suspense, that I don’t think I even snapped out of my trance until the hour-and-a-half mark. “God, all my friends are such morons,” I tsked. “This is just great!”

Then the infamous “Tim Robbins” scene arrived. To be honest, after all the bad press for it, I couldn’t tell you what I was expecting. Anything short of Robbins entering the scene pantsless with a beanie, clutching a rubber chicken and a gas-powered fart machine would have been a colossal letdown. So I was enormously confused when Robbins arrived, and to an inaudible drum roll… acted like a normal scared man who’d lost his family to the invading alien hordes.

“That was it?” I goggled. “Why the hell was that so bad? He just talked about the aliens a bit and offered Cruise and Co. a place to crash for the night. That’s a movie-stopper?”

What I hadn’t realized from all the armchair reviews, of course, was that it wasn’t Tim Robbins specifically that sandbagged War of the Worlds down to molasses-slow, credibility-bending speeds, but rather the entire third act of the film that Tim Robbins’ appearance marks the beginning of. This became increasingly clear to me a few minutes later, when—spoilers from here on out, folks—the aliens attack Tim Robbins’ basement.

Annnnnd attack it. And… just keep on attacking the hell out of it, with wave after wave of sentry droids and marauding beasties poking around in the boxes in the cellar and red plantlife and eventually an enormous tripod monster, until—even in my blissed-out pot haze—I had to eventually think, “Why the hell are these fucking aliens so interested in Tim Robbins’ basement?”

Seriously, it’s a world invasion—clearly there must be a better use for the alien horde’s time than hunting around in a fruit cellar for forty goddamn minutes.

It seriously, honestly and truly, just ground the movie to a halt for me. And this was a movie that had me wrapped right up in it with a little bow on top. Maybe it stuck out as much as it did simply because the first half was so awesome, no film could keep the momentum going; but whatever the reason, I got sucked right out of the story. In other words, I looked around the theater for the first time and thought, “I’m watching a film,” and started thinking about things I was gonna do after the movie was over.

I don’t care how acclaimed the director is—that’s most likely a bad thing. The closest movie I could compare it to would be the first Spider-Man flick—another movie I found myself completely spellbound for, which also thudded to an ignominious halt around the two-thirds mark.

So: for all my pathetic, “Screw you, Dad!” attempts to be a renegade lone wolf, it appears the masses were spot on with their Borg-like hive review. The movie starts off awesome. Then it starts to smell when Tim Robbins shows up.

And yes. The ending was retarded.

Damn it. I remember when I used to have my own opinions.