BAH!! I greatly disliked the movie. I woulnd't be screaming every 5 seconds for my life if I were 9 years old and if aliens from Europe came and attacked me! Furthermore, the kids were spoiled little brats, insisting on seeing the war, heh Robbie asploded (yes I did mean to say asploded ), he didn't live for crying out loud. I didn't really like the movie. I don't really like tom Cruise, he had a look of happieness in his eyes through out all of the movie and he was smiling a whole lot . But I liked the part where he threw the sandwich on the window.
I decend from grace in arms of undertow...
[QUOTE=Magrus]I think you and I would end up in the hospital trying to drink together... Oh its a shame you live so far away man. We could have so much fun! Well... maybe. We might end up in jail after we get out of the hospital.[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=Rob-hin]LMAO
Good thing you explaned that to me or it would have bothered me for weeks to come. [/QUOTE]
Okay, now for a disclaimer...
bear in mind that, given the space required to house enough vacuum tubes sufficient to replicate the functions of the transistors in a device such as a video camcorder, said device would be exceedingly bulky, heavy and would require a steady solid anchoring to the ground to be employed with any effect...much like the old TV cameras of yore...so in other words, you need to disregard principles of engineering in order to stomach this explanation. Apart from that, enjoy.
CYNIC, n.:
A blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be. -[url="http://www.alcyone.com/max/lit/devils/a.html"]The Devil's Dictionary[/url]
Well, I thought it was very, very good. The first half was absolutely fantastic, some of the best filmmmaking I've seen in a while, and the best of it's kind (alien invasion, that is).
The second half was ok with some greatness here and there. I didn't like Ogilvy at all, except for his demise, which was great for the Ray's character.
The ending was absoultely dreadful. To have his son come back is one of the most harmful moves Spielberg has ever done in the ending of one of his movies, and I've seen The Terminal and Minority Report.
And the idea of how the aliens weredefeated needed to be fleshed out much more. In the book, it's fine ot have it as a post script, but in a film, having it explained to us in a short narration at the end just doesn't cut it.
I thought Cruise was excellent, the first down to earth, regular character I've liked him as (I loved him in Magnolia and Collateral, but he was hardly down to earth or regular there). And except for that one bit with the grenades, the character remained totally, 100% consistant throughout.
The first pod landing sequence is one of the finest sequences I've ever seen put to film. It is just flawless, from the very first instant of wonder, leading to dread, to terror, and to the brilliant touches with Ray and the ashes in the house. How he sits there, on the floor, totally and forever changed, until his daughter knocks him out of it, then with the mirror in the bathroom....just brilliant filmmaking.
The intensity of the movie is just something I've never experienced before. Sure, I've seen intense movies before, but never such (for lack of a better word) enjoyable intensity. In the break, my heart was pounding, I was actually shivering.
The movie had fantastic VFX (though there was one shot that looked a bit too much like a painting, and no on purpose, like some of the puposely cartoonish stuff), and had flawless sound work, and Janusz Kaminsky's cinematography was perfect.
I respected the movie's (IMO) realistic poratrayal of the decay of basic human values in the situation. The shot that struck me most in all the movie was the shot when, after the attack on the car, and Ray and the kids go into the diner, you see the guy picking up the gun, looking at it, then looking at the car. It may have even been more powerful if he hadn't shown what actually happened.
The movie's got more than it's share of flaws, of course, as I said, but all in all, the first half is so good, and there are so many images forever burnt into my brain from this movie. Spielberg continues to be the most potent director from his generation, always going for something new that he hasn't done before. Not always succeeding, his past 4 movies all suffer from bad or terrible endings (I think The Terminal had quite possibly the worst ending a movie has ever had), I still think he swings for the fences much more than most directors now a days. He's certainly not playing it safe in his movie choices, and that's always a good thing in a director. I couldn't wait for his Munich Olympics project from the moment I heard about it, and my excitement has doubled after the word got out that he's makign the film about the human aspect of the massacre and the targeted assassinations that follow, not the political aspect, which would be a lose-lose situation.
I'm very happy that this, RoTS, and Batman Begins seem to be the most talked about films of the summer. I think making summer films darker is the only to get any subtance into them now a days. And Despite rather bigstructural flaws in all 3 movies, those are 3 fine movies, and to have the most talked about movies being good movies is something that hasn't happened in a while. I said it 4 years ago, and I still think it's true- audiences are getting smarter. Where this will lead us, no one knows, but at least temporarily, I think this is a good omen.
"Veni,Vidi,vici!"
(I came,I saw,I conquered!) Julius Ceasar
It was ok I wouldn't see it again. That whole thing with the blood sucking that was dumb. The ending stunk. The little girl was annoying and her part was pointless. But the aliens and machines were cool.