I went to see War of the Worlds last Thursday after work at the AMC 10 in Burlington, Ma. The theatre was pretty empty but that's just as well. I hate rowdy types who don't know how to behave in a theatre, and a less full theatre means rowdy types are less likely…

While sitting through the mandatory 20 minutes of previews, I jotted down ideas for a story I am thinking about. Of the movies previewed I thought that the Chronicles of Narnia, Stealth, and King Kong (starring Jack Black of Tenacious D) all looked interesting. Then finally, the main feature began.

The special effects were amazing and chilling, the aliens scary, and the story gruesome and disturbing. In the original the primary weapon of the invaders was a heat ray that burned up buildings and victims. In the new feature, the aliens used a devastating death ray which turns human bodies into clouds of ash, leaving behind only the clothing. We've seen effects like that before, but never quite like this–people distintegrate instantly while running, leaving their clothing still airborne afterward. Technologically unlikely and strategically pointless, but really creepy and cool looking.

Tom Cruise did his bit as Ray Ferrier, dockworker and irresponsible dad well enough–his character was reasonably believable. He was upstaged (as most are) by Dakota Fanning who played Ray's daughter Rachel. Watching Ms. Fanning act terrified was emotionally draining for me as a parent… Dakota is an amazing young actress. She has a great future ahead of her in acting if she chooses to continue that way. I first saw her in Hide and Seek, a dreadfully bad picture which completely miscast Robert De Niro and upon which his skills were largely wasted. Fanning on the other hand was incredible in that film and having seen her do it again in War of the Worlds I find myself wondering if she is even capable of a bad performance. Playing Rachel's brother Robbie in WotW is Justin Chatwin. I can't say much about his performance because his character was utterly cliched and unbelievable–he may be a fine actor, but his was a bad part, existing solely to cause trouble and to ultimately force Ray to choose between his children in what I imagine was intended to be a gut wrenching scene. If anything that scene was a dichotomy between Fanning's amazing performance and Cruise's and Chatwin's rather anticlimactic final conflict.

I had seen the original War of the Worlds (circa 1953, based on H.G. Wells novel of the same name, circa 1898) when I was a kid. As I recall I didn't like the ending–I thought it was kind of a cop out. It was only later in life that I learned how improbable it was. I fully expected the same ending, but I didn't know if I would dislike it as much this time. As with any remake those that put this film together chose to change some things. Unfortunately, although the changes they made were very cool looking, they also made the ending even less probable.

So in the end I was unhappy with the way the movie wrapped up, but otherwise I suppose I had a good enough time. The movie was a serious downer, though, and parts of it were so disturbing that I didn't feel all that well afterward. So I guess my review is: even more improbable, and watch at your own risk.

As for the improbability, well that requires spoilers. So read on only if you have already seen the film or don't plan to.

As you may or may not recall, in the original movie War of the Worlds the aliens came from Mars, completely decimated human society and made a mockery of our defenses, before succumbing to Earth-native bacteria and other microorganisms. The book WotW was visionary stuff for 1898, and H.G. Wells can be forgiven for scientific inaccuracies as by and in large his work was amazingly accurate given the scientific knowledge of his day. In many ways the new movie is truer to the original text. In 1953 I suppose making animated tripods march through cities was technologically daunting for special effects artists, and so the aliens rode about in hovering mishaped saucer-like vehicles. Also, in the original book, the aliens sustained themselves by drinking blood. I don't recall that from the original film although admittedly I haven't seen it in ages. In the new film, the aliens are terraforming our planet into a world suitable to their own needs. To that end they “hydroseed” a creeping red plant and fertilize it with human body fluids drawn from live victims collected specifically for that purpose (one of the most gruesome scenes in the film, IMHO).

The real problem (apart from the aliens coming from Mars, which thankfully, we were spared this time) was the idea that creatures from another world would succumb to Earth-bound microorganisms. Humanity learned long ago that when you journey to new places and meet new people, diseases which have almost no effect on one group might prove deadly to the other group which has never experienced them before. We learned about immunity at great cost. As a result, when we first began exploring other worlds, decontamination was a big concern. It's still a concern but popular belief among scientists these days is that an alien microorganism, one that evolved in an alien ecosystem, is extremely unlikely to infect humans or indeed any lifeform it did not coevolve with. An alien germ infecting humans is as likely as a human sustaining himself by eating plastic forks. From a biochemical perspective plastic forks aren't food to us, our bodies cannot process them. The same would likely be true of an alien germ infecting humans, or an earthly germ infecting aliens.

In Well's day, explorers and conquerors did indeed suffer gravely from disease, and often visited great suffering on the peoples they encountered in the same manner. It's fitting that Wells would choose such a demise for the invaders as his tale was intended as a blistering critique of British imperialism, based in no small part upon the British invasion of Tasmania and eradication of its native population. In 1953 it was still largely believed that an organism could be infected by alien microorganisms. Today it is not, but I suppose if one wants to be true to the original story, the ending must be allowed to stand.

In the original story, the aliens brought their instruments of destruction with them. In the latest installment, the aliens arrive in freak lightening storms and descend into the ground in tiny capsules. Moments later the enourmous tripods bust up through the ground and begin wreaking havoc. The contention is made in the film (with some support) that the tripods have been buried there for years, long before humanity spread across the globe, perhaps thousands or even millions of years–further weakening the idea that the aliens are going to succumb to some unknown microorganism. After all, they've been here before right? How many of them died last time? If they've been studying the planet for that long and have actually sampled the environment, and they are so technologically advanced, why would they not discover that for some inexplicable reason the microorganisms on this planet are 'compatible' with their physiology? Bleh.

In a way I find this far more annoying than the camcorder that is still working after the invaders shut an area down with an EMP weapon, and somewhat more annoying than Robbie's eyerolling appearance at the end of the film. Ah well. If you're prepared to overlook this stuff, you'll probably enjoy the film more than I did.