War of the worlds

in

body2:

Plot
Ray and others flee as a tripod unleashes its destructive weapon, which vaporizes humans and is powerful enough to collapse buildings and push objects such as cars around.
Ray and others flee as a tripod unleashes its destructive weapon, which vaporizes humans and is powerful enough to collapse buildings and push objects such as cars around.

The film begins with the narrator (Morgan Freeman), informing that Earth was being observed by extraterrestrials with immense intelligence and no compassion. As man dominated the world without doubt, much in the way microorganisms "swarm in a drop of water," these beings have plotted to take it from him.

The action opens with Brooklyn dock worker Ray Ferrier finishing the third shift in the morning. His young daughter Rachel and teenage son Robbie are staying with him at his house in Bayonne, New Jersey, while his ex-wife Mary Anne and her new husband Tim visit her parents in Boston for the weekend.

Later on that day, a strange wall cloud arrives unleashing EMP lightning repeatedly in the same spot about half a mile from Ray's house. The lightning disables all the working electronic devices in the area consequently leaving all the residents of the town stranded in the streets. The lightning makes a mysteriously cold hole from which a large tripod machine emerges and begins vaporizing human beings into dust in its path. Witnessing, and barely escaping the horror, first-hand, Ray takes his kids and steals the only operational vehicle in town, due to advice of changing the solenoid in the car.
Ray escapes the disaster zone and sees one of the tripods destroying Bayonne.
Ray escapes the disaster zone and sees one of the tripods destroying Bayonne.

They drive towards Boston, but the van is seized in a mob. From there, they continue moving on foot and gather with other refugees. They reach a ferry in Athens, NY, but three tripods appear over the horizon. The ferry moves off, but two tripods hiding underwater tip the ferry over, so many on board fall victim to more tripods. Ray, Robbie, and Rachel escape and swim to safety. Shivering, the three witness refugees running over the hill across the Hudson a few miles away, being attacked by three more tripods. Then they escape as they see the town of Athens being destroyed.

The next evening, they come across American military forces somewhere in Massachusetts, trying to keep more machines back--a valiant, but ultimately fruitless effort as the alien machines are protected by impenetrable shields. Although the weapons are ineffective, the army delay their advance so the refugees can escape. Robbie wanted to witness the battle and Ray, reluctantly, lets him go. In the ensuing chaos, an enormous firebomb erupts and the entire military platoon is wiped out. Robbie is separated from Ray and Rachel, and is feared dead.
Ray discovers the red weed has covered everything.
Ray discovers the red weed has covered everything.

Shortly after, Ray and Rachel are offered shelter in a basement by a man named Harlan Ogilvy who lost his family to the alien invaders. The invaders settle close to the house where the trio are hiding and tensions start to emerge between Ogilvy, who wants to strike back at the alien invaders by finding a weakness and exploiting it, and Ray who is preoccupied with his own safety and that of his daughter and therefore wants to hide until the invaders move off to a different area. Meanwhile the invaders begin spreading a strange "red weed", which appears to be a mysterious plant synthesised from the blood of harvested humans.

From the start Ogilvy exhibits signs of mental stress, possibly due to the loss of his family. He mentally cracks after witnessing one of the alien tripods harvesting blood and tissue from a helpless human victim. This causes Ogilvy to run into a room in the basement, shouting and furiously trying to dig a hole which would lead to an imaginary escape from the nightmare he just witnessed. Ray, concerned that the commotion Ogilvy was creating might draw the attention of the invaders to himself and his daughter, kills Ogilvy as a means of silencing him. However this act later on proves to be futile when a probe later discovers Ray and Rachel asleep. The two are forced to flee the basement.

Rachel runs outside and Ray follows to find her, but the two are consequently captured by a tripod and placed in a cage with other humans. When Ray is grabbed by a mechanism pulling him into the body of the tripod and seemingly bound for death, a soldier and others help to keep him in the cage. After the group successfully saves Ray, it is revealed he sent two grenades into the tripod. The grenades detonate, causing a multitude of explosions in the tripod, destroying it. The cage lands on the ground and everyone in it escapes.

After they are freed, Ray and his daughter continue to move towards Boston. It is there that they find the red weed dying along with other tripods. Ray discovers that the shields are not active on the tripods and tells a soldier. The tripod is eventually destroyed by a Javelin missile launcher the soldiers have. The alien invaders inside are dying as well. With the threat over, Ray finally brings Rachel to Mary Anne where she has been waiting for them, along with their son Robbie. Though nothing is directly said between them, Mary Anne is eternally grateful to Ray for all he has done.

The narrator's voice returns, informing us that it was not any weapon of man that defeated the menace; it was instead the small things in nature that were their undoing. The very bacteria that have plagued man, and to which we had long since developed an immunity, attacked the invaders upon their arrival, sealing their inevitable doom.

Bookmark/Search this post with: