It's not necessary to consider the context in which a filmmaker makes a film - but it is interesting. In Steven Spielberg's case, he was just last summer deciding to to postpone his planned drama on the Mossad's actions in the aftermath of the 1972 Olympic Bombings - a film which would have been been a politically charged and undoubtedly harrowing picture. The Olympic catastrophe almost single-handedly shaped the modern concept of terrorism, and the film, tentatively titled Vengeance, had the potential to be Spielberg's most serious (and perhaps, given his faith, personal) film since Schindler's List. But then he set it aside temporarily, and soon afterwards occupied his time with this quick adaptation of H.G. Wells' classic tale of Martian invasion, The War Of The Worlds.

I consider this context because it's impossible to watch The War Of The World without thinking about what Spielberg is trying to convey in it. It is a genre piece, of course, and aside from any necessary effects of being modernized, it follows Wells' 1898 novel (and thus Orson Welles' 1938 radio show and to almost the same extent George Pal's 1953 adaptation) with an almost beat-for-beat faithfulness; but into this well-known scenario Spielberg (working from David Koepp's screenplay) has devised imagery and scenarios that are unmistakable in their implications, and horrifying in their familiarity. To say that the film is an allegory for September 11th might be a bit of an overstatement, but the parallels are there, and they are no accident; and had Spielberg been in the mood to make a summer popcorn picture, he would not have made this film. It is, essentially, his most serious-minded and harrowing film since Schindler's List, passable as entertainment simply because of it is, after all, about an alien invasion.

9/11 introduced new terms to our visual language, and those terms have in just four years become commonplace; the video clips that were so incessant in those first days are now cheap catchphrases for nightly news shows. This terminology will never have the same value that it once did, unless it is reinterpreted. What Spielberg has done in The War Of The Worlds is utilize this imagery we're so familiar with to give the story more weight than it would have otherwise, and more than perhaps it would deserve if the film were merely meant as as an entertaining diversion.

And perhaps he intended it as such originally, and certainly there are moment where the tension is relieved and some humor is allowed; but by and large, the horror of the alien invasion, seen almost entirely from the perspective of Tom Cruise's Ray Ferrier and his two children, is unmitigated. As dark as his thrillers may have been in recent years, Minority Report being the prime example, they were still a lot of fun - rollercoaster rides, as the saying goes. The War Of The Worlds is a rollercoaster ride on which most of the other passengers sitting next to you fall out during one of the loops. For nearly the first forty five minutes, and frequently thereafter, the film is legitimately upsetting.

All of this is, in fact, very good, and indeed, this is a very good film. Minority Report and Catch Me If You Can were both nearly perfect pieces of entertainment, but where they eventually fell short, this film succeeds. It is tightly wound; only rarely does it lag or falter awkwardly, and thanks an opening and closing narration lifted directly from Wells' text, the film is delivered from the distended denouement that has systematically plagued Spielberg's last few films. Koepp's script plays to The Beard's two greatest strengths: creating set pieces and dealing with the dynamics of divorced parents and their children. In regards to the former, the limited scope works wonders, especially in the first half of the film when the near-flawless special effects all seem to be glimpsed out of the corner of the lead characters' eyes. As for the familial material - I've accused Spielberg often enough of pushing too hard for cloying sentiment, and while I could do the same here, to do so would require a critical stretch I'm simply not willing to make at the present. Tom Cruise deserves a lot of credit here as well; Dakota Fanning, even more.

Appropriately, the film ends exactly as the novel does (indeed, with its very words), and some might initially find this anticlimactic or underwhelming. Indeed, from a certain perspective, the film is far more self-contained and less ambitious than any of his efforts over at least the last ten years; had he gone for bombast, however, he would have undone everything he had achieved prior, and discredited the entire picture. The War Of The Worlds has uncommon focus and urgency, given its director's tendencies of late, and a tone practically unheard of for a summer blockbuster. It of course won't provoke widespread panic the way Welles' radio adaptation so famously did, but the intentions of the two auteurs are pretty much on par.

As a postscript, I should mention that, if the sensibilities on display are anything to judge by, I suspect this film will make a fine, albeit unexpected, companion piece to the picture Spielberg is currently shooting: the now un-postponed Vengeance, which is being produced as quickly as this one was and is scheduled to be released by the end of the year.