Martians and creepy kids
Jul. 5th, 2005 12:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tallulahgsWent to see War of the Worlds last night...
The film was traumatising. Done very well in some places, not so good in others.
The Martians should either have had a forcefield or not had a forcefield. Seemed like they had one when it suited the plot.
Dakota Fanning is a very, very creepy child actress. She's pretty good, for a kid, when she isn't talking... when she is, she comes across as annoyingly smug and she's been given extremely self-righteous lines. She also tends to look a bit demon-possessed, and could give Yoichi from Ring a run for his money in the Unintentionally Creepy Children stakes. Tom Cruise was very good, I thought, I can't see what the Telegraph film critic was complaining about, but then I often feel this about the Telegraph film critic.
I got very depressed in the first half of the film (once the aliens came up out of the ground and started killing people) - something about how bad things are happening all the time and you probably won't survive, won't be a hero, just get shot down in the first few seconds; and even if I did survive I'd have a nervous breakdown. And how real life is worse than the film because at least in the film it's not humans doing this stuff to each other. But then I got to the bit of the movie where the teenage son runs off going 'I have to see [the battle between humans and Martians], Dad, you have to let me go,' which I thought was typical teenage selfishness and shouldn't have been presented as moving and right (especially as the whole point was that Dad had never been there so how could he let go?) And so with my beta-reader hat on, I didn't feel so depressed.
Also I thought that Crazy Guy actually had a point about digging tunnels to hide from the Martians and didn't deserve to be murdered by Tom Cruise.
The plot is dodgily structured and the ending is a bit of a cop-out, but this is HG Wells's fault. We did the book in English when I was thirteen, and neither me nor my friend could remember how we studied it - I remember reading it, and hating it, but the only work I remember doing that was based on it was having to write a fake newspaper report about aliens landing on the Common near our school. It seems a bit excessive to put sixty thirteen-year-old girls through reading that book just for that.
I am determined to keep my LJ updated despite lack of Net access.
The film was traumatising. Done very well in some places, not so good in others.
The Martians should either have had a forcefield or not had a forcefield. Seemed like they had one when it suited the plot.
Dakota Fanning is a very, very creepy child actress. She's pretty good, for a kid, when she isn't talking... when she is, she comes across as annoyingly smug and she's been given extremely self-righteous lines. She also tends to look a bit demon-possessed, and could give Yoichi from Ring a run for his money in the Unintentionally Creepy Children stakes. Tom Cruise was very good, I thought, I can't see what the Telegraph film critic was complaining about, but then I often feel this about the Telegraph film critic.
I got very depressed in the first half of the film (once the aliens came up out of the ground and started killing people) - something about how bad things are happening all the time and you probably won't survive, won't be a hero, just get shot down in the first few seconds; and even if I did survive I'd have a nervous breakdown. And how real life is worse than the film because at least in the film it's not humans doing this stuff to each other. But then I got to the bit of the movie where the teenage son runs off going 'I have to see [the battle between humans and Martians], Dad, you have to let me go,' which I thought was typical teenage selfishness and shouldn't have been presented as moving and right (especially as the whole point was that Dad had never been there so how could he let go?) And so with my beta-reader hat on, I didn't feel so depressed.
Also I thought that Crazy Guy actually had a point about digging tunnels to hide from the Martians and didn't deserve to be murdered by Tom Cruise.
The plot is dodgily structured and the ending is a bit of a cop-out, but this is HG Wells's fault. We did the book in English when I was thirteen, and neither me nor my friend could remember how we studied it - I remember reading it, and hating it, but the only work I remember doing that was based on it was having to write a fake newspaper report about aliens landing on the Common near our school. It seems a bit excessive to put sixty thirteen-year-old girls through reading that book just for that.
I am determined to keep my LJ updated despite lack of Net access.
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Date: 2005-07-05 06:03 pm (UTC)I haven't seen the movie; I've read some grumbling reviews, ranging from Spielberg's depiction of Cruise's character as a stereotypical "dead-beat dad" straight out of a Feminist International Party propaganda piece to your own complaint: Cruise's character actually kills the artilleryman? That's almost as big a departure as having the Martians come out of the ground (what the heck? Just because the government space programs fizzled doesn't mean space is not out there!).
I'll probably rent this when it comes out on video, but I can't seem to muster much interest in paying inflated cinema prices to see it.
Spoilers alert for WotW
Date: 2005-07-07 01:53 pm (UTC)Well, the dead-beat dad thing didn't bother me too much, he could have been a lot more dead-beat IMO. But yeah - he blindfolds his daughter and tells her to put her hands over her ears and sing to herself, then goes into the other room - the artilleryman is frantically digging his tunnels, but stops when Cruise walks in. Then it cuts to the daughter singing. Artilleryman never seen again, and earlier Cruise threatened to kill him if he didn't shut up... can't see how he killed him though, he had no gun.
Oh yeah... the Martians didn't come out of the ground in the book. How could I have forgotten that?