"Schindler's List" meets the Martians

Steven Spielberg’s adaptation of H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds, the flipside of Close Encounters of the Third Kind and ET, wasn’t something I was especially looking forward to. The trailers looked like outtakes from Earthquake (in “sensurround”!) and I was horribly disappointed a few years ago by the failure of Independence Day to recapture the great 1950s alien-invasion movies (including George Pal’s 1953 classic War of the Worlds).

But Spielberg’s War of the Worlds is jaw-droppingly great. I was not prepared.

I’m just going to note a few things, and then I’m done. If you’ve seen the film already, you’ll know what I’m talking about. If you haven’t seen it yet, you’ll understand later.

Here we go...

• Tom Cruise staring into a mirror, then frantically rinsing ash from his face.
  

• The “reveal” of the first Martian tripod.
  

• The river scene. Oh, God, the river scene.
  

• Clothes fluttering through the sky and down city streets.
  

• Tom Cruise dealing with the Tim Robbins “situation.” Unforgettable.
  

• Spielberg’s done nothing to diminish the greatness of George Pal’s 50-year-old War of the Worlds. In fact, he nods affectionately to it several times.
  

• Morgan Freeman’s the man.
  

• Little Dakota Fanning needs to get an Oscar.
  

See the movie for yourself. (But leave the kiddies at home. No kidding.)

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