War of the Worlds A new film project about the attack of aliens on our planet leaves after watching not only pride in the modern capabilities of military equipment and heroic soldiers, but also a sense of the American state order to increase enlisted in the army and in the marines in particular. The film is not so permeated with heroic pathos as similar to him “Independence Day”, how much throws patriotic ideas into the brain and tells you to go to serve the homeland. Jonathan Libesman shot the most expensive agit advertising of all time, famously disguised it as a commercial movie.
Of course, there is nothing to blame for such things. In the United States, both the army under contracts without conscription and the patriotism pouring from the screen are sustained in the form in which it should be expressed, and the brave guys in uniform are shown as real heroes and pride not only of their country, but of the whole world. So, a group of trained fighters with their cockroaches in relations with each other is sent to pick up a group of civilians from evacuated Los Angeles, learning that the attack on their country is not the next terrorists Saddam Hussein, not the Asians who have increased their nuclear potential and not even the eternally evil Russians, but aliens from space. The screen unfolds a real war of worlds, presented on the scale of the battle for the city.
Scale up to the level of a summer blockbuster is not enough here, but good commercial potential can show a much more impressive spectacle in the sequel. However, the main problem of the weakness of the visual picture is camera work with a spectacular presence. The whole film we see as if from the face of another Marine, and thank God to the form of an amateur camera here it did not come. A fair shaking, loss of focus and far from the best viewing angles, although they help to be in a similar confusion with the main characters at the scene, passing the entire story path side by side with the squad, but do not give the beauty of combat operations, prevent you from seeing in all its glory the technique and the alien invaders themselves. But, to give credit, the camera always tries not to turn away and bounce, but to cover the next collision or explosion as much as possible.
The technical part, despite the weak shooting, still pleases the design of air and ground structures of aliens, qualitatively executed firefights with pyrotechnics, and at the same time the scenery of the semi-destroyed metropolis. The problem for entertainment is the enemy of the whole cinema PG-13 as the rating of the picture. With the ever-decreasing number of military personnel and the prevailing atmosphere of a cruel and unequal fight, only the scene of the alien autopsy was expressive. And here I want to note that in a similar "Skyline" was not only a more impressive variety of aliens and their equipment, but also torn brains with other abundance of violence, with the same PG-13 rating. What prevented the “Los Angeles” from turning around is not clear.
But the plot part did not fail. Out with vivid conflicts, the main characters cause a lot of sympathy, and found among the civilian survivors of women and children add to the experience, thereby increasing the degree of tension in individual scenes such as descending on cables from a destroyed freeway or landing in an exploding helicopter. The latter, by the way, is one of the first reasons to view everyone who is in the topic. The second reason can serve in the fore-century surviving Michelle Rodriguez, who took the most suitable and standard role of a combat girl and set the heat for the aliens in full program!
Against the background of other characters among the military platoon, the main character performed by Aaron Eckhart came out extremely dull and completely boring. At some points, he struggles to act out the drama of memories of the past or pull the blanket over himself, but such scenes look either ridiculous attempt to justify the status of the central character or excessive stretching of time. However, you can’t blame the extra scenes of the movie, almost two hours of timekeeping are carried by an interesting entertaining fight with a share of tension at the climax points. Successfully inscribed characters in the plot are good, and the action with elements of pathos and patriotic agitation does not roll into outright banality and linearity, even with a good ending, everything is not so simple.
The invaders themselves deserve special attention. The design of the aliens directly will not impress, but the successful idea to equate them not with an intelligent race, but with brainless aggressive animals is simply magnificent! The anatomy of these creatures is understood exclusively by a veterinarian who examines the body parts of an uninvited guest to the most vulnerable places. Invading our planet and encroaching on our valuable life resources aliens in battle scenes are represented by strategic troops, without much intelligence and personality characteristics. Faceless mass they will die under the fire of the military, then they themselves shoot those, but the air fleet and completely instead of manned ships is represented by mechanical drones-drones, dependent on the signal of command centers. Such a vision, instead of a developed enemy, is a soulless beast, more impressive than the speeches of commanders to raise the morale of tired and frightened soldiers, but they also have their strength.
Performed in a lively and active manner, the resulting movie-attraction of war with colonizers from distant space looks with interest. And except that the inept cameraman Lucas Attlin and unacceptable for such a picture children's rating, censorship constrains the rich potential of armed conflict, can spoil positive impressions. But despite all the flaws, Libesman’s patriotic action movie turned out to be excellent and explosive, perfectly thought out from beginning to end. Not too much inferior to some more vivid examples of this genre, and with dignity occupies its niche of a good entertaining film. At the end, before the credits, I want to give a quote from Star Troops, also in many ways similar to the genre product of previous years, with the words “They will fight on!” And they will win!
7 out of 10
Original