Reviews (Action Films)

1. "War of the Words". This movie is directed by Steven Spielberg and written by Josh Friedman and David Koepp. It is a contemporary retelling of H. G. Wells’ seminal classic and this science fiction adventure disaster thriller reveals the extraordinary battle for the future of humankind through the eyes of one American family fighting to survive it. The film stars Tom Cruise (Ray Ferrier), Dakota Fanning and Justin Chatwin (Ray Ferrier’s children), Miranda Otto (Ray’s ex-wife), and Tim Robbins (Harlan Ogilvy). Ray Ferrier, a divorced dock worker and less-than-perfect father lived separately from them. Soon after his ex-wife and her new husband dropped off his teenage son Robbie and young daughter Rachel to look after them for a few days a strange and powerful lightning storm touched down. After a while the planet was invaded by aliens, the earth’s armies defeated making Ray to try to protect his children and flee to Boston to rejoin his ex-wife. The film’s got humor, horror, and amazing effects. But it's mostly the story of a father willing to do anything to save the lives of those he cares about. The acting was also more than you may expect. Dakota Fanning proved why she was the go to girl currently. She added a complexity to her role that was seldom seen amongst child stars. Rather than just acting off of Tom Cruise and reacting to him, it would see as if she actually inhabited her character and gave it its own personal qualities and pathos. Tom Cruise also did well, showing us that he can portray other things that his well-known personality. The scenes with him and Dakota (one in particular after the departure of another character) were absolutely breathtaking. The aliens in War of the Worlds were presented as a force of nature: the unseen aliens and their three-legged ships were disinterested in communication or negotiation with human beings, whom they perceived as a lower life form, they used their superior firepower to destroy and demolish anything and everything. Once the alien invasion began, Spielberg is in his element, staging scenes of mass destruction and their aftermath. The tripods were accompanied by an eerie, deeply unsettling two-note blast. The film was shot in 73 days, using five different sound stages as well as locations at Connecticut, Staten Island, California, Virginia, and New Jersey. It was released in the United States on 29 June and in the United Kingdom on 1 July. War of the Worlds was also a box office success, and was 2005's fourth most successful film both domestically, with $234 million in North America, and worldwide, with $591 million overall. Steven Spielberg described the story as follows: "It's nothing you can really describe. The whole thing is very experiential. The point of view is very personal — everybody, I think, in the world will be able to relate to the point of view, because it's about a family trying to survive and stay together, and they're surrounded by the most epically horrendous events you could possibly imagine." 

2. "Class of ‘61" is a 1993 television film produced by Steven Spielberg as a projected television series about the American Civil War. Created and written by Jonas McCord, who was also co-executive producer with Spielberg, Class of '61 owed its existence to the success of the award-winning documentary series “The Civil War” on public television. Shelby Foote, the novelist and historian, had a credit as a consultant on both projects. Class of 61 tells the story of a group of friends who were cadets at West Point at the outbreak of the civil war. The class of 1861learnt that the rebel batteries in Charleston had opened fire on the flag. The cadets were soon choosing sides for a war that would leave 600,000 dead. Three close friends were separated by personal loyalties. Shelby Peyton (Dan Futterman) returned to Virginia and a commission in the Confederate Army. Hot-headed George Armstrong Custer (Joshua Lucas) rushed off determined to defeat Jefferson Davis. Son of an Irish immigrant, Devin O'Neil (Clive Owen), went with the Union Army, although he knew nobody would really win this war. His brother Terry (Christien Anholt) fought for the Confederacy. His sister Shannen (Sophie Ward) was pregnant with Shelby's child. The movie was filmed in Charleston, South Carolina and Atlanta and was the first collaboration between Spielberg and cinematographer Janusz Kaminski. This two-hour movie used period maps and etchings to move the action along. And letters figured prominently in the script. The scene in an army camp consisted almost entirely of voice-overs with passages from the soldiers' letters home. As might be expected in a Spielberg project, this one directed by Gregory Hoblit, the production values were impressive. The conclusion, the Battle of Bull Run, was admirably planned and executed. This film may be recommended to anyone, especially for those who are interested in American History - the Antebellum years and the Civil War in particular.                                                                                                                                           
3. "Vanilla Sky" is a 2001 American science fiction thriller movie directed, co-produced and co-written by Cameron Crowe. It is a remake of the Spanish film Open Your Eyes. The movie stars Tom Cruise (David Ames), Penelope Cruz (Sofia), Cameron Diaz (Julie) and Steven Spielberg (Guest at David Ames' Party). David Ames was a playboy who found romantic redemption when he fell in love with his best friend's girlfriend Sofia. Before that relationship can began, however, David was coaxed into a car driven by an ex-lover, Julie who turned out to be suicidal. Driving her car off a bridge, Julie killed herself and horribly disfigured David. Reconstructive surgery and the loving support of Sofia seemed to reverse David's luck, but eerie incidents soon made him question the reality of his existence and his control over his life, even while he was suspected of complicity in Julie's death. This movie is fascinating, often frustrating, boldly uncommercial Hollywood version of a boldly uncommercial art film, which offers the sort of edgy, dangerous psychodrama that will resonate in your head, keeping you thinking and debating long after the final song has lapsed into silence. It has also been described as “ an odd mixture of science fiction, romance and reality warp”, “part Beautiful People fantasy, part New Age investigation of the Great Beyond,” a “love story and a struggle for the soul,” and an “erotic adventure, romance, mystery, and psychological thriller, with a dose of science fiction.”                                                                                                       
4. Steven Spielberg's "Schindler's List" is based on a true story and stars Liam Neeson (Oskar Schindler), Ben Kingsley (Itzhak Stern), Ralph Fiennes (Commandant Amon Goeth). A German businessman in Poland, Oskar Schindler, saw an opportunity of making money from the Nazis’ rise to power. He started a company to make kitchen utensils, using bribes and flattery in order to win military contracts, and brought in financier and accountant Itzhak Stern to help him run the factory. Having staffed his plant with Jews who had been herded into Krakow’s ghetto by Nazi troops, Oskar received a dependable unpaid labour force. For Stern, a job in a war-related plant meant survival both for him and the other Jews who also worked for Schindler. But in 1942 all of Krakow’s Jews were assigned to the Plaszow Forced Labour Camp, overseen by Commandant Amon Goeth, who had a habit of shooting prisoners from his balcony. Oskar managed to continue using Jews in his factory, but he began to develop a conscience, when he saw what was happening to his employees. He realized that his plant was the only thing that prevented his staff from being shipped to death camps. Soon Oskar Schindler demanded more workers and started bribing Nazi leaders to keep Jews out of the camps and on his employee lists. By the time Germany fell to allies, Schindler had lost his fortune and could save 1,100 Jewish people from death. Schindler's List was nominated for 12 Academy Awards and won seven, including Best Picture and a long-coveted Best Director for Spielberg, as well as numerous other awards (7 BAFTAs, 3 Golden Globes) and it quickly gained praise as one of the finest American movies about the Holocaust. What is most amazing about this film is how completely Spielberg served his story. The movie is brilliantly acted, written, directed and seen. Individual scenes are masterpieces of art direction, cinematography, special effects, and crowd control. Spielberg did an uncommonly good job both of holding our interest over 185 minutes and of showing more of the nuts and bolts of the Holocaust than we usually got from fiction films. Despite some characteristic simplifications, he's generally scrupulous about both his source and the historical record.