War Of The Worlds

War Of The Worlds (a remake of the 1950s classic The War Of The Worlds) is a major disappointment. Its director (Steven Spielberg) and leading actor (Tom Cruise) are arguably the two most successful men in the Hollywood film industry, and their previous collaboration, Minority Report, was a sophisticated sci-fi thriller, but War Of The Worlds pales in comparison.

Tom Cruise gives his standard Cruise smirk and nothing more, so his character has no real development. Dakota Fanning, playing Cruise's daughter, spends the whole film screaming, in a hugely irritating performance. The plot, which is sometimes borderline illogical, sets up several possibilities which are later simply dropped. The feel-good ending is unbelievable.

The original version is one of the greatest science-fiction films of the 1950s, and one of only a handful of films featuring a full-scale alien invasion. (Others include Earth Vs The Flying Saucers, Independence Day, and the parodic Mars Attacks.) It is also, however, an overtly Christian film, with a quasi-Biblical narration.

This religious aspect has been retained in Spielberg's remake, which I find both surprising and disturbing. Spielberg's film, a blockbuster 'event movie', was released around the world, yet he still included references to "God's creatures" in the narration: he has turned American cultural imperialism into proselytism, entirely inappropriate in an increasingly secular and multi-cultural society.