What follows is a running commentary of my experience of sitting through that giant multi-million dollar turd back in 2005 - War of the Worlds. It probably helps if you've seen the movie to understand all the references that I make, but don't worry if you haven't, because the movie sucks huge piss flavored popsicles anyway so it doesn't matter.
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And here we go. The War of the Worlds, starring Tom Cruise and two kids, because kids in movies are never annoying, ever. Anyway, things seem to start off well. The buildup to the emergence of the Martian... oh right, Spielberg said they're not Martians. So, they're aliens, I guess guess, outer space aliens from The Horses Ass Nebula, and fuck you H. G. Wells. The buildup to the emergence of the 'aliens' is almost scary, but if they're aliens, what the fuck are they doing burying their big ass tripods directly under down town New Jersey?
Anywho. Like I said, the buildup is almost scary, and it's actually somewhat enjoyable. The lightning storm (this is before I knew how fucking retarded it was) causes me a little bit of anxiety, and does a competent job of increasing the buildup. Then when Tom gets there where the lightning was striking over and over and over, he picks up a rock from this area of the road that is broken all to shit. It's already a weird stacked on top of super WTF casserole day, but instead of immediately high tailing it, he picks up a piece of broken asphalt and it's freezing... which I think is weird, but whatever. When the tripod climbs out of the ground and raises itself to full height and then trumpets its call to its friends, well, this is just downright awesome. Unfortunately, this is where the awesome ends, forever and ever, and just fuck me running with a pogo stick.
Now everybody is standing around and staring like retarded mongoloids at this big fucking bastard that just climbed out of the ground, and lemme pause here. Allow me to postulate... If I was right there with that gaggle of retards, staring at this big bastard, I'd be thinking...
"What's it gonna do next? Nothing? No, it's gonna do something. It definitely ain't gonna do NOTHING. It's either gonna completely surprise the hell out of everybody, and then nobody gets killed, or it's going to either stomp on everybody or kick them or pick them up and scream into their faces until they melt and after that it kills all remaining humans. So, two possibilities - something, anything at all, or it's gonna start stomping the humans."
And holy shit, whoa, I was right! But instead of stomping, the tripod shoots blue beams of death out of these ridiculous tiny little baby robot arms and lots of people get smoked. The 'getting smoked effect' is kinda neat, but I've actually got a huge problem with this method of killing off the human infestation. First off, these blue beams of death do a great job of turning a person into dust, but they don't do any damage to clothing, as when a person gets smoked, their organic bodies immediately turn to ash, but their clothes aren't damaged at all. They just float away on the breeze! What the fuck?
But then we see one of these blue beams strike a car, and the car goes flying through the air and explodes! What's up with that? And then, right after that, the blue beams completely destroy a concrete interstate on ramp full of traffic, and everything explodes! So, for some reason, these beams are useless against certain kinds of fabric... weird, but I figured this out in just a few seconds... but it didn't seem like anybody else really noticed. I mean, if I figured it out, anyone could have figured it out after seeing a few people turned to powdered toast. Thus, the logical strategy would be to cover every inch of your body in clothing. Perfect shielding!
Back to it. Tom Cruise is so scared out of his mind that he doesn't notice that clothes are invulnerable, either. Lord, have mercy on these mongoloids. So, intent on escape, Tom manages to find the only working car in New Jersey. Supposedly the alien EMP blast that preceded all of this nonsense fried all of the electronics all over world and, um, that's including all electronic car solenoids. No problem though, as the mechanic dude at the garage just finds a spare one that somehow was miraculously shielded from EMP...? Whatev, so he installs it in a van. And, voila! Now Tom and company don't have to trudge across country for the first half of the movie. The little girl, um... whats her face, totally freaks the fuck out in the car and I wanted to slap her right across her scrunched up little screaming mug to get her to shut the hell up! I think, however, that this is an attempt at character development...
"Fuck the words and sentences, I'm tired of writing this fucking script. The little girl screams in order to show that she has serious abandonment issues."
"Yeah, that. Damn that brat sure has a set of lungs."
Finally Tom plus the kiddoes get to moms house, and everything seems normal. No tripods! Whew, what a relief! And it's here where he reveals himself to be an immature jerkoff with zero parenting skills. I think this is supposed to be another attempt at clusterfucking the characters in this movie to make it 'serious'... whatever.
Anyway, later that night, this thing happens that sounds exactly like another alien thunderstorm. However, despite the similarities, Tom is convinced that it isn't. He says...
"No, this is something else!"
Ok. How many times has Tom witnessed bizarre flashes of light and bizarre thunderous sounds that aren't natural? Obviously enough times to be able to tell two different types of unnatural flashing noisy phenomenon apart, right? So anyway, a plane crashes and lands on the house, smooshing anything above the basement to smithereens. I assume this is a 'nod' to the cylinder crashing on the house, a major scene from the book. When I realize this, I'm incensed with rage. I ball my fists up and punch myself in the eyes over and over. "ARRGGGH!" I want to yell out loud in the theater, but I don't. I just sit there like a lunatician who finally figured out how to go insane at will and wait for whatever happens next to happen.
The next morning Tom explores the destruction from last night. It's a jetliner that crashed directly on top of moms house. Whoo-ee, she's gonna be pissed! After wandering around like a retard for a minute or two, he happens to happen upon a news van, and this reporter chick shows Tom some slow motion footage of the lightning bolts, and now the sinister alien plot is revealed by this reporter chick in the van and, oh yeah, some deaf guy. Anywho, fuck the scientific method, she just 'decides' that the aliens shoot themselves into the ground inside lightning bolts and down to the waiting machines...
Call me weird, but I would think that an alien lightning bolt, traveling at the speed of light and slamming into solid asphalt, would pretty much paste whatever organic occupants that were riding the lightning. But then again, maybe they have the ability to dampen inertia somehow - but if they can do that, then why do they ride around in clunky tripods? Why not just hover everywhere or fly a cool anti-gravity ship if they can defy the laws of physics? And whats with this tripod being buried right under the ground in downtown Jersey? You mean nobody ever noticed this thing when they were laying the water pipes and the foundations? And why does the damn thing have to unscrew the ground above it? You mean to tell me that they built New Jersey on top of a giant screwhead for a giant container which housed a giant tripod, and didn't notice the damn giant things buried there? Another feeble nod to the book I guess, since the real Martians had to unscrew the end of their spaceship to get out.
And whats with the 'million year' scenario? Like, the aliens have been waiting for millions of years apparently, for human beings to ripen, I guess. But according to the infinite wisdom of this reporter chick, those aliens had been preparing to have a big ole chunk of fun with the earthlings a million years ago with all of this fabulous weaponry to take out the human race, but a million years ago, humans hadn't even evolved past the homo erectus stage! People had only just discovered fire for Petes sake, and had half the brain capacity of modern humans. And these aliens, instead of taking over the Earth then and there, decide to wait another couple million years? Maybe they just thought it would be more fun to blow up buildings and shoot passenger planes out of the air and stomp on earthlings and drink their blood and stuff.
So, Tom gathers up his fam, and... his son, what's his face number two, does a dismal job of pretending to be 'angry' at the aliens, as if he's the only human on Earth that's totally pissed off at these aliens. Fuck that guy! Then Tom and co. get passed by a convoy of soldiers, and I get a little excited. Are we gonna see some butt whomping? No. Instead we get to see Tom and his two brats argue, and brat number one just screams a lot. Ow my ears, and yawn. Oh yeah, I almost forgot. The smaller brat needed to take a leak, and just when she's about to piss in a river, she sees dead bodies floating by, and the bodies are wearing clothes...? WTF was that all about? Nevermind, who cares.
Now we see Tom and the brats driving past some refugees. Almost immediately, a few of the refugees get a little excited when they see a working car, and this is reasonable, I suppose. They all want a ride and suddenly it's a zombie movie as hordes of zombies try to break into the car. Eventually, Tom and company lose their vehicle to a zombie with a gun, and they narrowly escape with their lives. Then Tom cries like a sissy in front of his kids, who desperately need to see him be strong, but he's not. He's a big sissy and cries like a little girl when he gets carjacked. Life sucks and then you die, Tom! Everybody knows that.
Next, Tom plus two brats are trudging along with a line of refugees intent on boarding a ferry which will take them to safety. Huh? This looks a little bit like maybe the Thunder Child will torpedo some aliens! Although, I am wondering what a battleship would be doing on the Hudson River at that exact moment, but that doesn't quench my hopes. Suddenly, tripods appear! They truly look menacing and bad ass. I start to get a little excited again. Here they come, and they're trumpeting to each other in those horribly frightening voices of theirs. Everybody panics, and they all try to get on the ferry at once. Chaos ensues as everybody freaks the fuck out at the same time.
Oh yeah, whats his face - the big brat. I can't remember anybody's name in this stupid ass movie. Anyway, his character, the biggest brat, bravely tries to help people aboard the ferry. We now see his character in a new light... he is completely devoted to humanity, he wants to kill alien tripods with his bare hands, he wants to join the army and kick some big alien booty, and to top it off, he has instantly developed into 'the good guy', that irritating little fucker... a true humanitarian. Oh, and he takes care of his sister, whats her face, to boot. How can dad stand to be around this little punk? That big brat shows him up every chance he can get, what with his superior morals and everything. Tom can't wait to pawn these brats off on mom.
Anyway... so they get on board the ferry, and I'm waiting for the Thunderchild to show up, but instead, a tripod comes up from underwater. Why this one waits until now to appear, I just can't say. I mean, all of its brothers have been kicking ass and taking names for a day or two already. Maybe a week! Or, maybe the water shorted out the lightning bolts and it took a while to get the aliens into this particular machine. Or, maybe the alien was just waiting until the ferry left because it would be more fun to scare the living crap out of all the terrified people on board by rising up out of the water right fucking next to it. And about that machine rising up out of the water. It definitely looks about ten times bigger than the other machines in this scene. Is this some kind of super tripod? Why would they need super tripods when the regular ones are doing a pretty good job of wiping their asses with America?
Sigh. How much more is there? Good God, I can't believe I'm sitting in a movie theater watching this turd blossom. So the Thunderchild never shows up to save the steamer... I mean, the ferry... and the super tripod knocks the ferry over, dumping Tom and company and everybody else into freezing water. The fam narrowly escapes death and they finally emerge from the water, soaked to the bone and probably about to freeze to death when... Miracle of miracles, dry clothes suddenly are falling out of the sky! I guess these are the clothes of all the people who just got smoked by the tripods. Nobody thinks to change out of their freezing duds though, because they're fucking retarded.
All of that shit happened and now Tom and his brats are trudging across country once more. I think this is an attempt to communicate the level of human suffering inflicted by the aliens by portraying humanity as bedraggled, wounded and burned, fleeing some nameless horror, shocked, awed, totally fucked up, oh how the mighty have fallen... you know, some shit like that. Nobody really seems injured though, but all of them are dirty with nasty shit encrusted filth.
Suddenly, military jets scream by overhead! Helicopters appear firing rockets at something! Humvees and tanks are all heading towards a spot behind a hill where a fierce battle is obviously being waged! Soldiers bravely stand their ground, fighting this unseen enemy in an attempt to delay their advance so the trudging refugees can escape! Then Toms son, whats his face number two, goes completely insane. Wow, I should have seen that coming... anyway, he runs like a full blown lunatician straight towards the battle, intent on self immolation. And what's his excuse?
"I want to see it," he says.
Gone are all thoughts of kicking alien tripod boo-hiney and protecting his sister. Now he just wants to watch as the United States military gets an alien sized mudhole stomped into its ass? Ok, whatever. Or, more likely he just wants to die. Fucking emo teenage brat. Tom pretends like he is concerned, but in his mind he's thinking...
"Whew! Finally got rid of one of em,"
And he hurries back to his daughter who is indeed in danger - not from aliens, but from being kidnapped by fleeing refugees! Oh my goodness, how suspenseful. Screw the aliens, they ain't got shit on these good Samaritans! Then, before anybody can do anything, a giant tripod appears which is completely surrounded by a churning maelstrom of roiling flames. And, what's this?
Once again, I have to be the one to think of shit. So, armed with the wisdom that comes with looking at something and thinking of shit, it's apparent to me that the flames have no trouble at all penetrating the alien shielding. I mean, the machine is completely engulfed by them at one point! Hey, army, use your flamethrowers! DUH! Then a few minutes after that we see a missile explode several yards away from a tripod, stopped by the invisible shields. Whats up with this? Didn't the army invent flamethrowers exactly for a situation like this? You could probably heat up one of those tripods if you were persistent, par broiling the aliens inside! Nobody thinks of this though. Once again I'm the only one who thinks of shit. Oh, and we never get to see the battle. What a big fat hairy disappointment. Fuck this movie!
But it keeps happening, right in front of me, and I have no choice but to watch it in silent horror. Now Tom and his daughter are running across the countryside when blind luck falls on them... they, Tom and brat number one that is, have just been selected out of the hundreds of fleeing refugees by an insane vigilante, who wants to recruit them so that that they can help him single handedly destroy all of the aliens. Tombrat is unaware of this however, and sees this guy urgently inviting them into a basement, which seems to him to be their only chance of safety. At first this seems like an alright situation, as the aliens obviously don't care anything about this house because they haven't laid the smack down on it. Once they're all in the cellar or basement or whatever, the guy introduces himself as Ogilvy. And I seriously want to vomit. Come on. Here we have the bastard child of Ogilvy the astronomer and the artilleryman from the original novel, but with the addled wits of the curate thrown in for good measure! In one fell swoop, Spielberg has managed to cram three characters into one bastardized semblance of a man gone completely bonkers... thus saving the expense of actually portraying these original three characters as actual... you know, characters. Instead we get three for one. Wow, what a bargain.
Anywho, soon it becomes clear that Ogilvy is a retard, as he tries to take on an alien tentacle with an axe. Later, his mental capacity drops even further as he tries to shoot one of the actual bare assed and slimy green aliens with a shotgun as they're exploring the basement.
Let us examine this situation for a moment. Say um, oh. Ogilvy, let's say he actually manages to kill one of the bastard ass aliens. Or if he's lucky, possibly two since the shotgun has two barrels. Or maybe it's pump action, hell I can't remember. Anyway, there are three aliens, so at most Ogilvy can probably kill two of em. But one of the aliens will be left alive, and unless he can take it out with the axe, of course the one surviving alien hauls ass back to the tripod and alerts the rest of the aliens to the presence of these three humans in the basement.
Now, lets say, for the sake of a completely pointless argument, that Ogilvy gets really lucky and takes them all out. I would think that one or two of the aliens up top would notice after a while and send that tentacle down again, and this time with no B.S. So, Ogilvy is either very very stupid, or he's just flat out insane with a suicidal streak, and also fucking retarded. But he's definitely is freaking the fuck out, no argument, which by itself is enough to alert the other slimy fuckers, and Tom can't have that, no siree. So now it's time for Tom to flex his muscles, and he just flat out beats Ogilvy to death with his bare hands. This show of bravado endears his daughter to him, seeing him kill a man (she definitely peeked) and she runs to his arms and falls safely asleep.
Now for the real corn casserole, and with extra cheese. Another alien tentacle enters the house. Wow, big surprise... and this time there is no fooling it like last time, which puzzled me because I definitely saw that boot move behind the mirror. And if I saw it, you know that tentacle saw it... but nevermind, shit is getting real, real fast, and Tom hacks the alien tentacle to pieces with the axe. Instead of endearing whats her face to him like before, this time the insane display of violence scares the living crap out of her and she flees outside. Good Lord. So Tom runs after her, shouting her name - you know, whats her face - but despite the fact that she can only be a few yards away and definitely heard Tom shouting, she picks this time to finally shut the fuck up and she doesn't answer. Maybe she is scared stupid? That's a thing that happens, right?
Anyway, Tom has it out with a tripod and gets thrown around a little, and whats her face number one gets captured. Tom looks around frantically and finds some grenades in a wrecked humvee, and chucks one of the grenades at the tripod. It explodes harmlessly against the shield, but the tripod doesn't even pause to asses the situation... it simply turns around and captures Tom, apparently forgetting that this little human just threw an explosive device at it. I would think... call me weird, but here goes... If I were a tripod full of aliens, I should definitely think first before I let anything inside my shield... especially if said thing had just chucked a big kablooey at me, like five seconds earlier.
ANYWAY! Tom and the brat are both in a cage now, captured by the aliens. Every couple of minutes a slimy tentacle comes out of the side of the tripod and into the cage, before finally grabbing a screaming human and dragging him back into the tripod for a snack or something. And wouldn't you know it, yeah, it's Toms turn and he gets sucked inside by the tentacle. The other captured humans hold onto Toms legs, and he only goes halfway inside, but while he was halfway in there he pulled the pins on about five grenades, which are now inside the tripod. I gotta say, pretty clever! The tentacle let's go as the grenades go off inside of the alien machine, which gets destroyed as a result and drops the cage containing the humans right onto a spiky tree. Miraculously, nobody is impaled. Now whats her face looks at the fallen alien tripod, then she turns to stare at daddy with amazement. I guess she's decided that she loves violence after all! You can almost hear her thoughts...
"Wow, daddy saved me from the tripod. Daddy is a bad ass. This changes everything. Bye bye, abandonment issues!"
Yeah, that.
Meanwhile, the red weed, which has practically covered the entire planet in slimy red vines, starts to die and then shortly after, so do the aliens. Tom and the brat happen upon some soldiers who are wondering what to do about a half-dead alien which is just standing there and howling when Tom notices that birds are resting on the unprotected hood of an alien tripod, as opposed to just hovering a foot away from them as they would have been if the tripods shields had been working. Its a good thing too, since there's no telling what that half dead alien might have done if what's left of the United States army wasn't there to blow it up with hand held rocket launchers.
And this, my friends, is the penultimate battle scene...
A staggering, defenseless drunken alien, is pulverized to death by hand held rockets. No Thunderchild. No small but glorious victory by a well hidden artillery sneak attack. No aliens falling into the river as a lucky shot hits a tripod square in the nuts. No cheers from refugees who have just gotten a taste of hope, however small.
No... Just a stumbling drunken tripod getting whomped on by a bazooka.
Ok, so without shields, and what with all of them getting sick with the flu, this one gets bazooka'd, falls over, and crashes through a big brick building before finally lying still. Oh yeah, as it's crashing directly toward the humans, one hapless human who didn't get out of the way quickly enough got crushed to death underneath a car that the tripod smashed into, and then squashed again by the actual tripod. I thought that was semi-cool, and I actually laughed out loud in the theater.
Somebody said, "SHHHHHHHHHH!"
I said, "Something wrong with your lips, motherfucker?"
And that ended that right quick and in a hurry.
So then a hatch opens and orange goop falls out in great slimy gobs. Is this alien blood? What is all of this orange goop coming out of a machine? Fucking nasty! Now, in a brave but sickening tribute to the George Powell film, an alien hand claws its way out of the hatch and then the alien dies, once and for good.
Finally we see Tom carrying the brat as they finally arrive at Boston, and Tom is relieved that soon he'll be pawning this screaming meemie her off at moms. Something doesn't make sense though... as by some miracle, Boston is unscathed while the rest of the world is pretty much incinerated. They arrive at Grandma's apartment then, and Tom practically throws the brat at the mom.
Fuck, dammit, now that fucking brat number two appears, somehow still alive and already at grandmas, and he heads straight for daddy and gives him a sticky smelly bear hug, as he's still wearing the same smelly, dirty, torn up wet clothes that he had on when he joined the monster mash. Anyway, that's the touching embrace scene, and finally it's mission accomplished. The aliens are dead, and Tom doesn't have to deal with the two brats anymore.
Halle-fuckin-lluia.
The End.
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