War Of The Worlds

[Stefen]

Oh, it's so much fun, no doubt. It's everything you want in a summer blockbuster, but as with most everything Spielberg does, he just lays the sentimentality on way too thick.

He gets kudos for having his main character be a fucking murderer, I mean, who else would do that? It was pretty brutal.

It's just frustrating because Spielberg can do ANYTHING he wants. ANYTHING. He has so much clout. I wish he would just be a filmmaker and not a businessman. I understand he wants his movies to make money, but just a few times I'd like him to just make a movie. Not worry about how many people he can get into the theater. I like what Gilliam says about Spielberg, about how he always wants to make sure his audience leaves feeling happy and good about themselves.

Spielbergs ideas are brilliant. This film is a testament to that, but he's always putting more emphasis on tying up loose ends in a friendly way that at the end, instead of thinking, "holy shit. that was fucking awesome." you end up rolling your eyes.

I consider A.I. a masterpiece of this decade and it will be in my top 5 (maybe top 3), but it suffers from the same problem as this does. But what A.I. has that WOTW doesn't is a dreamy, bedtime story quality that lets it get away with pouring sugar on it like a one armed drummer. Also, with A.I., while the ending may seem happy, I don't think it was happy at all. Much like Eternal Sunshine, I think the ending was pretty fucking sad and heartbreaking, but on the surface, seemed happy.

[ElPandaRoyal]

I consider A.I. a masterpiece of this decade and it will be in my top 5 (maybe top 3), but it suffers from the same problem as this does. But what A.I. has that WOTW doesn't is a dreamy, bedtime story quality that lets it get away with pouring sugar on it like a one armed drummer. Also, with A.I., while the ending may seem happy, I don't think it was happy at all. Much like Eternal Sunshine, I think the ending was pretty fucking sad and heartbreaking, but on the surface, seemed happy.

There's nothing even remotely happy about that ending and when I watched the movie again recently I even felt it was almost unbearably sad. I also love War of the Worlds, but agree that the ending (not everything about the dumb son character. I like him until the moment he goes with the troops) is somewhat lame. Yeah, Tom Cruise and his kids are safe, but he's not their "father" anymore. That just doesn't have, in any way, the power of A.I.'s ending.

[Stefen]

Yup. I've talked to people who have seen A.I. and when I ask them if they thought the ending was happy, they say, "yeah, the boy was reunited with his mother!"

lol.

[ElPandaRoyal]

Lol. It's kind of sweet to see David reunited with his mom, but I guess they missed the implications of that encounter. I think that, though very sad, it's also quite a beautiful piece of work. Great movie.

[Stefen]

I just found it sad because it wasn't real. it was like a psychological experiment but he kid didn't know any better because he was a fucking robot.  still though, robot kid is way better than dumb son.