War of the Worlds (2005 film)

29/06/2005View on timeline

War of the Worlds is a 2005 American science fiction action film directed by Steven Spielberg and written by Josh Friedman and David Koepp, loosely based on the 1898 similarly-titled novel by H. G. Wells and jointly produced and released by Paramount Pictures and DreamWorks Pictures. It stars Tom Cruise with Dakota Fanning, Justin Chatwin, Miranda Otto, and Tim Robbins in supporting roles. It also features narration by Morgan Freeman. The film follows an American dock worker who is forced to look after his children, from whom he lives separately, as he struggles to protect them and reunite them with their mother when extraterrestrials invade the Earth and devastate cities with giant war machines. This was Gene Barry's final film before his retirement that year and his death in 2009.

The film was shot in 73 days, using five different sound stages as well as locations in California, Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, and Virginia. The film was surrounded by a secrecy campaign so few details would be leaked before its release. Tie-in promotions were made with several companies, including Hitachi.

War of the Worlds was released in the United States on June 29, 2005 and in United Kingdom on July 1, 2005, by Paramount Pictures and DreamWorks Pictures. The film received generally positive reviews from critics, with many praising the performances (particularly those of Cruise and Fanning), Spielberg's direction, screenplay, action sequences and visual effects, and was a box office success, becoming 2005's fourth most successful film both domestically and worldwide, with $234 million in North America, and $591 million overall. The film earned three Academy Awards nominations for Best Visual Effects, Best Sound Mixing, and Best Sound Editing.

North American theatrical release poster

Plot

Divorced longshoreman Ray Ferrier works at a dock in Brooklyn, New York, and is estranged from his children: 10-year-old daughter Rachel, and teenage son Robbie. Ray's pregnant former wife, Mary Ann, drops them off at his house in Bayonne, New Jersey, on her way to visit her parents in Boston.

Later, a strange storm occurs during which technology stops working and lightning strikes multiple times into the middle of a local intersection, disrupting all electricity. Ray joins the crowd at the scene of the impacts, where a massive "tripod" war machine emerges from the ground and uses powerful energy weapons to destroy the area, disintegrating most of the witnesses into a grey dust. Ray collects his children, steals a van that had just been repaired, and drives to Mary Ann's empty home in suburban New Jersey to take refuge. That night, they take shelter in the basement, but they soon hear a strange roaring noise followed by an explosion, which destroys the house. The next morning, Ray discovers that a Boeing 747 had crashed into the neighborhood. A wandering news team scavenging food from the wreckage explains to him that there are multiple tripods that have attacked major cities around the world. The tripods have force shields to protect them from human weapons, and the tripods' pilots traveled to Earth within the lightning storms as a way to enter their machines, which are assumed to have been buried underground for millions of years.

Ray decides to drive the kids to Boston to be with their mother, but a desperate mob swarm their vehicle and they are forced to abandon it. They eventually board a ferry to cross the Hudson River only to be surrounded by several tripods, who begin massacring and abducting many of the refugees, but Ray's family manages to escape. They then witness U.S. Marines engaging in a futile battle with some tripods; Ray tries to stop Robbie from joining the fight, but is reluctantly forced to release him so that he can take Rachel to safety. Ray and Rachel flee as the machines annihilate the soldiers, and are offered shelter in a farmhouse basement by a deranged man named Harlan Ogilvy.

The three remain undetected for several days, even as a probe and a group of tripod aliens explore the basement. They soon discover that the aliens are cultivating a red-colored vegetation across the landscape that is quickly spreading; the group deduces the aliens are modifying Earth to make it more like their home planet. The next morning, Ogilvy suffers a mental breakdown upon witnessing the tripods harvesting human blood and tissue to fertilize the alien vegetation. Fearing that Ogilvy's mad shouting will alert the aliens, Ray reluctantly kills him. A second tripod probe catches the Ferriers sleeping; Rachel flees and is abducted by a nearby tripod, and Ray joins her after picking up a belt of grenades. Ray uses the grenades to destroy the tripod from within, freeing all the abductees.

Ray and Rachel arrive in Boston, where they find the alien vegetation withering and the tripods inexplicably collapsing. When an active tripod appears, Ray notices birds landing on it, indicating its shields are offline. Ray alerts the soldiers escorting the fleeing crowd, who shoot it down with anti-tank missiles. As the soldiers advance on the downed tripod, a hatch opens and a sickly alien struggles halfway out before dying. Ray and Rachel finally reach Mary Ann's parents' house, where they are reunited with Mary Ann and Robbie.

A closing narration explains that the aliens' immune systems could not handle the countless billions of microbes that inhabit the Earth, and that humanity has "earned" the right to the planet by virtue of naturally coexisting with the rest of its biosphere.

Cast

- Tom Cruise as Ray Ferrier

- Dakota Fanning as Rachel Ferrier

- Justin Chatwin as Robbie Ferrier

- Miranda Otto as Mary Ann Ferrier

- Tim Robbins as Harlan Ogilvy

- Rick Gonzalez as Vincent

- Yul Vázquez as Julio

- Lenny Venito as Manny the Mechanic

- Lisa Ann Walter as Sheryl

- Ann Robinson as Grandmother (she played the lead role of Sylvia van Buren in the 1953 film)

- Gene Barry as Grandfather (he played lead role of Dr. Clayton Forrester in the 1953 film)