The Field Marshal

War of the Worlds - The Field Marshal's View It's such a beautiful Sunday. The birds are chirping, the air is fresh, and the sounds of families going about their weekend stuff in their homes is just so nice! Now back to what this post is about. Have heard, and read, quite a few comments/critiques, from friends and the experts, on the new Spielberg flick - War of the Worlds (WOW). In general, most of the comments centred around the lack of plot and chracter development, apart from Cruise's character, that is. So, the comments have been generally bad. In fact, the rather poor comments have actually nudged Mydemon to consider giving WOW a miss, despite it being a 'must watch' movie when we heard about it sometime last year. Well, I am just glad that I managed to persuade Mydaemon to catch it with me yesterday. Like what I said earlier, different strokes for different folks. What a bonus when we left the cineme, both highly satisfied, after watching what I would call a great movie. For me, the accusations of thin storyline and poor story development is unfounded. Granted that the story is simple. But simplicity in itself does not denote the lack of a story. Having not read H.G. Wells WOW, I can only comment on what Spielberg tried to express in his film adaptation. The story for me is simple. Aliens burying 'harvest' machines many eons back. Aliens came back and found that earth has changed. Cannot tahan what they saw as human arrogance, while not forgetting the fact that the over-populated earth is sorely ripe for harvesting. Countless of lightning strikes later, tripedal monsters start vapourising and harvesting the humans. Set within this harrowing experience is the quest for survival by a dysfunctional family. Typical of today's social ailment, Ray - Cruise's character, is divorced from his wife. His daughter, well played by Dakota, sufferes from some form of psychosis, while his older son can't wait to break lose from the shackles of family authority. For me, the development of this family unit was the core 'plot' of the entire show. To focus on this aspect alone, is to take away Spielberg's fine attempt at teasing out the humanity's primitive latent potential to revert itself into the 'survival of the fittest' mode in times of social breakdown. The scenes of the mob attacking Cruise's car mirrors the dark potential that we humans will sink to when social order is gone. Aesthetically, the special effects are well rendered. Especially good was the snake-like probe that tried to detect Cruise and his daughter. That scene was really well crafted. I was on the edge of my seat, hoping fervently that it will not find Cruise and his daughter. Come to think of it, WOW kept both Mydaemon and I on the edge of the seat throughout the entire 2 hours. All in all, WOW is one of the best movies I have watched this year. A WOW DVD will definitely find its way into my collection sometime soon.