[Film Review] The War of the Worlds (1953)

Contains spoilers for The War of the Worlds (1953).

When you think of old atomic age sci-fi films, you are probably either thinking of Forbidden Planet, with its wild costumes and humanoid aliens with questionable ethics, or you are thinking of The War of the Worlds (1953).  War of the Worlds is a special kind of famous, the kind that pierces generations and finds permanent residence in the subconscious of every westerner alive, even if they don't know anything about it outside of it being about an alien invasion.  It is the quintessential alien invasion film, forwarding special effects and playing its story relatively straight.  There are no bells and whistles to War of the Worlds, just the simple premise played out in that Golden Age of Hollywood fashion.  War of the Worlds, as well, is a movie I've never really liked. 

To take it a step further, I never much cared for the original novel by H.G. Wells.  The novel has been reduced to a faded discoloration of where a memory once stood so I cannot say whether my opinion still holds, but the movie's memory remained, for the most part, before I recently rewatched it.  War of the Worlds pulls no punches, with a scientist protagonist (a suave, manly scientist, as Hollywood at the time dictated every leading man should be) and a myriad of side characters ranging from small town bumpkins to military personal who just can't seem to find enough firepower to take the darn things out.  The conflict of the film follows a relatively straightforward A and B plot structure.  The A plot follows the general human resistance to the invading threat.  An unnamed narrator comes in three times throughout the film to explain the origins of the aliens, the havoc they wrought across the globe, and the explanation as to what happens in the end of the film.  In between, we see the discovery of a fallen meteorite (that, of course, turns out to be an alien ship), the US military's initial attack, and eventually their follow up attack near the mid-point turn.  The B plot follows our protagonist and a woman named Sylvia, who is his love interest and perpetually screaming woman.  

The film has sexist depictions and near nauseating American pride undertones (the latter of which, admittedly, is little more than sheer American confidence and respect in one another from farmer to priest to military general like I've never seen in my lifetime, ignoring class and expertise).  But they come with an asterisk.  Regardless of your modern viewpoint on the matter, it wouldn't quite be fair to dismiss the movie entirely based off of that as it falls pretty well in line with what was aspirational in the American zeitgeist in the 50s, and is hardly the focus or point of the film.  If nothing else, this is fantasy for those of the time, or at least an expectant fantasy that everyone (in power and paying to see movies) could relatively agree on, and has value in communicating that as a historical record.  But, more importantly, the film should be viewed without considering those things outside of themes and plot, otherwise we would get lost in a political debate as to how we view and regulate our past, something I am not willing to do when talking about War of the Worlds, of all things.  Save that for something that deserves it.  

No, I won't give it flak for all of that, but that still leaves a lot to give it flak for.  I'll say that overall I liked the film more this time than the latter two times I saw it as a kid and as a teen, but not by very much.  The plot is incredibly traditional, but the film doesn't grind itself into nothing but action set pieces and cheap thrills.  Generally speaking, the film tries to waken wonder into what is going on, before giving us pieces of suspense as to what these aliens look like and how our heroes will ever overcome this.  At least in part, there are some good themes being played around with.  All of the military might - including an atom bomb said to be stronger than any ever dropped on this earth - doesn't seem to touch the alien civilization.  There is an early indication that perhaps there is something admirable about these (literal) beings from Mars, as pastor Matthew Collins remarks: "if they have technology greater than ours, then they must be closer to the creator!"  This assumption is discarded at about the halfway point, however, when they find that, though the aliens seem to have great minds, they are physically much weaker than us.  Their sight seems to not pick up on red light (a weird bit of detail since they see with a tri-color lens, with a part for green, blue, and red, a sly reference to Technicolor techniques and color televisions), their blood seems to be anemic, and they have frail bodies.  They aren't better than us, they are simply more technologically advanced.

There is a reason for this plot point, and for treading the technological theme.  War of the Worlds, inexplicably, has strong Christian overtones.  From the pastor at the beginning to the recurring church plot point, from the bible references to the last word of the entire film being "Amen" - War of the Worlds has one reason why we won: because we are God's creation.  Nothing we do can stop the aliens from destroying our planet, but luckily for us the bacteria that we have resistances to (and live with) are more than the aliens can handle, and after some time it finally catches up to them and offs them at a dramatic moment.  It is a relatively famous ending, but an extremely corny and unfulfilling one.  In modern eyes, they just got extremely lucky, but the film paints it as miraculous, as part of God's plan all along.  The drama of this film is essentially in small doses, set pieces revolving around actual people face to face with the aliens themselves, and the lack of options growing thinner as the military try to pivot from one idea to another.  The futility of the situation feels heavily undermined by this ending, which, pun fully intended for maximum disparagement, is incredibly preachy.  

The film is a pulpy religious film, one that makes little point but offers some nice thrills.  I don't enjoy the movie, but the special effects are more than worth noting.  The film utilized multiple props to convey the aliens and their ships, using life sized gadgets for medium shots and close ups, and miniatures for wide shots.  It is a simple trick, but it is something that had hardly been done before in a movie (King Kong (1933) uses an animatronic for a couple of close up shots, but the wide shots were all stop motion).  Likewise, the sound design created that 50s and 60s sci-fi soundscape, with the synthetic whirring of ships and the distorted chirps of lazer beams.  War of the Worlds, no matter how you slice it, is an important film.  And it is pretty enjoyable, for the most part.  While I don't want to break the fourth wall, as it were with this sort of article, I feel the need to address that the film is better than I personally like it.  From a personal perspective, I don't much care for the film.  I think it is corny, pandering, and not as fun as it thinks it is (I much prefer films like Forbidden Planet or King Kong), but if I take away my personal enjoyment of the movie, take away my distaste of the religious symbolism (although some of that has to count for a couple of demerits, surely), you get a movie worth a relatively high rating.  The rating below doesn't represent my personal opinion of the film, but does represent my assessed quality of the film if I were to filter out some of my dispositions.  Take that for what you will, and if you haven't seen it you probably should.  And then check out those much better, more entertaining films I mentioned.  This one is only fine. 

 

 

      

 8.0