War of The Worlds

November 9, 7:04 PMSteven Spielberg ExaminerJustin Murphy

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   Based on the novel by H.G. Wells, this was Steven Spielberg’s second film with Tom Cruise after Minority Report. There are those who consider this a great film, but all some remember are Dakota Fanning scream every five minutes and Tom Cruise playing action hero as usual. This was, of course, a year or so before a series of incidents that led to decline in Cruise’s popularity. Some who watched this film felt it was Hollywood commercialism at its worst. Even there are also a good number who give the film great reviews.

    Maybe if Spielberg worked with Tom Hanks as the star of this instead. War of The Worlds would not have been an action film. It would have been character driven and humanistic, a man rising and becoming a hero in spite of the odds. Look at Forrest Gump, Apollo 13, and Cast Away for further proof of how much better Tom Hanks could have made this film. Yet instead we get a run of the mill sci-fi disaster flick. There are more than enough of those during the summer. Spielberg was more than capable of giving us something extraordinary.

    Yet Spielberg chose to re-team Cruise because he was bankable name and movie star who had broad appeal with the public at the time and made money at the box office. There is nothing wrong with that, it is just how business works. However, he would have gotten better results with a quality actor like Hanks. He and Spielberg worked together twice in Saving Private Ryan and The Terminal. Hanks has also proved he can be a huge box office draw in a high concept summer blockbuster that makes a lot of money at the box office. The film adaptation of The DaVinci Code by Dan Brown.

    In the end, he still chose to make the film with Tom Cruise with big box office returns, yet mixed results. With his next film Mission Impossible III, Cruise would experience a career decline with a series of incidents with Matt Lauer, Brooke Shields, and Oprah Winfrey that came at the expense of promoting the film. Such events have put Tom Cruise in a bad light, and put a damper on the impact of his film War of The Worlds as well in the long run. No doubt embarrassing Steven Spielberg to some degree.