War Of The Worlds

I'm starting to enjoy this movie review business, and I think KNCC should be paying me ;-)

Anyway, here's my review of Steven Spielberg's new summer blockbuster War Of The Worlds, starring Tom Cruise and... um... yeah that's about it. No wait, Tim Robbins makes a creepy guest appearance half-way through the movie.

The movie is a loose update of the H.G. Wells classic novel, which had its infamous mass audience debut with Orson Welles's 1938 live radio play which listeners mistook for a real news broadcast, running out into the streets in sheer terror.

In my determination not to give away any plot spoilers, let me just draw on a few parallels. Anyone who has lived through war or a foreign invasion will find eerie flashbacks in the scenes where the first invasions take place. They are very unsettling.

The movie's special effects are breathtaking, but at the same time absolutely terrifying. Earth is being invaded by monsters from outer space but you don't really know what they want, and that's what makes it so scary. Although the events take place between working-class suburb Bayonne, New Jersey and Boston, throughout the film the characters would talk about alien ships destroying large chunks of Europe, South America etc... No mention of the Middle East; I guess the aliens simply weren't interested. شنو يبون فينا؟؟؟

Tom Cruise gives a solid performance as a father determined to protect his children from the invaders, and for a couple of hours he's good enough to make you forget about his Scientology nonsense and his recent unhinged TV appearances. There are even t-shirts being sold in New York with the slogan "Free Katie", in reference to his recent engagment to Katie Holmes.

I'm not a huge sci-fi fan, but I do enjoy it when it's well written and well produced, and War Of The Worlds is exactly that. Go see it!

And now let me tell you about my KNCC experience Wednesday night. First I booked my tickets online which was very easy and convenient, except for the bit where you have to choose between Families or Bachelor. Yes folks, there's a picture of a family with 2 kids and another picture of one man in a suit. I wanted to pull my hair out!

I took a denim jacket with me, fearing the usual sub-zero A/C temperatures but I was shocked to find that it was actually warm inside the Al-Fanar theatre. Too warm even.

The movie trailers were all suitably creepy, announcing scary movies like The Jacket, Dark Water, House of Wax and so on, building a sense of dread ahead of the main feature . I'd like to think KNCC did that on purpose in a stroke of programming genius... but lets not push it.

Question: What would the film be called in Arabic? حرب العوالم? That sounds like a movie starring تحية كاريوكا and ميمي شكيب!!