#rich lee

War of the Worlds

WEDNESDAY .𖥔 ! 03.09.2025 . . . 219/300

WAR OF THE WORLDS✦₊. dir. rich lee [2025]✶⋆.˚  91m

your data is deadly . . . MY RATING 0.5 LETTERBOXD 1.0

wll radford is a top analyst for homeland security who tracks potential threats through a mass surveillance program, until one day an attack by an unknown entity leads him to question whether the government is hiding something from him… and from the rest of the world.

starring . . . ICE CUBE , EVA LONGORIA , IMAN BENSON , DEVON BOSTICK

I’ve seen many film adaptations of The War of the Worlds. This is by far the worst. That’s saying something – I've seen the Asylum version. For a while, it crosses over into “so bad it’s good” territory, but any fun at its expense doesn't last.

Department of Homeland Security officer Will Radford (Ice Cube) can see you wherever you are. Using drones, cell phone signals and every kind of camera, he gathers information for the U.S. government. His monitoring doesn’t stop once it’s quitting time, however. Ever since the death of his wife, Will has been tracking his children’s every move, resulting in a distant relationship between him, his daughter, Faith (Iman Benson) and his son, Dave (Henry Hunter Hall). After a series of freak storms, large “tripod” machines emerge from fallen meteorites and lay waste to everything in their path. In this time of crisis, Will is uniquely positioned to provide the authorities the information needed to assess this threat from space.

The action is primarily shown through Will’s eyes, using security cameras, drone footage, Zoom calls, news footage and computer screens. It’s not quite “found footage”, but it’s in the same conversation and mostly works. There’s even a parallel you could draw between Will watching his family from a distance and the thought that “as men busied themselves about their various concerns they were scrutinised and studied” To quote H.G. Wells’ book. I say "mostly" because the story occasionally forces Will back in front of his screen. It makes sense that the building he’s in is put into lockdown and that he is unable to open the doors (or break a window) but with what’s happening outside, it feels like a desperate parent would find a way out.

I said something nice. Now, let’s give this film the lashing it deserves. Firstly, while the point of view is intriguing at first, it's clearly an attempt to hide the rinky-dink budget. The outdoor scenes are minimal and the number of shots with multiple actors sparse. The special effects are unconvincing and we never see the level of destruction you’d expect if aliens attacked. The product placement is some of the clunkiest and most obvious I've ever seen, ensuring even fewer dollars needed to be spent and, most importantly, H.G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds entered the public domain in 2017.

An A+ story could make you forgive the visuals but then, there's the timeline. 2025's War of the Worlds is presented almost entirely in real time. When Will does something, you see him do it all and boy, does he do everything quickly. It takes him seconds to compile a list (with images) of what the aliens’ capabilities are, where they’re going, what they've accomplished so far, and how the United States should proceed. I’ve seen hackers depicted as computer wizards before. Never to this extreme. I know sending someone an Amazon gift card isn’t rocket science, but it takes more than a millisecond to log into your account, type how much you want to send, copy the link to the card and paste it in the chat you’re having with whoever. Not here. It might not sound like a big deal. Movies omit information constantly for the sake of pacing but it means the entire invasion is resolved in less than 24 hours. Some “War”.

2025's War of the Worlds changes key details from the book, making the end results nonsensical. The aliens have come to Earth to eat data. They munch on Facebook posts, Instagram videos, eBay listings, whatever. No, not the infrastructure that hosts websites; the information itself. They couldn’t just create data on their homeworld; they had to come all the way over here to devour our reels and profiles. What prompted them to make the trip? A secret government project recently activated by Will's boss, Director of the Department of Homeland Security Donald Briggs (Clark Gregg) – the very project mysterious hacker/whistleblower "Disruptor" was warning the world about in the film's opening scene…

Despite the alien invasion, people are still sitting at their computers, waiting for the latest update from “Disruptor” because once he uploads a video proving the aliens were drawn to us by Donald Briggs, everyone views it. The exasperation you’ll feel when Briggs is put through the wringer is amplified by the timeline. The planet's news outlets manage to write and publish an article about him in less time than it took us to watch the video "Disruptor" posted. Meanwhile, the aliens are still attacking so no one SHOULD care, but they do.

This is the kind of film that keeps giving to its haters but I'll only highlight one more: the film's complete misunderstanding of the book's message. Why the change in motivation from “we want your planet” to “give us your internet cookies”? Likely so writers Kenneth A. Golde and Marc Hyman could come up with what they thought was a clever, but is actually a mind-numbingly stupid conclusion. Call it deliberately anti-climactic, but the original ending, in which our efforts to counterattack are entirely fruitless but the aliens are wiped out by the common cold, reminds us that humanity is not all-powerful. In this film, Will's daughter develops the virus that wipes out the invaders. Not only is the invasion stopped within a day, but a single family is responsible for saving the world.

There's so much you could say 2025's War of the Worlds that it certainly remains "entertaining". I can even see a case for this film being “so bad it’s good” because its brain-dead choices constantly surprise you. I tried to have fun, but by the end, I felt like an idiot for trying to milk any entertainment from what I’m certain will be the worst movie released this year. (August 1, 2025)

Seems that Gal Gadot “Imagine” video isn’t the only piece of garbage to come out of Hollywood due to the COVID pandemic era…

Plot: A computer security analyst working for the U.S. government finds his daily life disrupted by an alien attack; accustomed to dealing with virtual threats, his struggle extends to secrets the government may be hiding.

You’re telling me the studios are okay to cancel the releases of Batgirl, Scoob! Holiday Haunt and Coyote vs. Acme (the latter luckily salvaged recently courtesy of Ketchup Entertainment’s acquisition) to get a tax write-off, yet this rubbish remake of a Spielberg classic that was made on the cheap during the lockdown period and been shelved for 5 years is now getting released for some unbeknownst reason? Yeah, sounds about right.

Let me reference a quote from the film’s producer Patrick Aiello: “The idea was organic,” says Aiello. “When catastrophes happen today, we experience them through our devices. That insight shaped the storytelling and tech used to create this immersive thriller.” He adds, “For the first time ever, a studio-scale sci-fi epic has been produced using a format that places audiences inside the action through the lenses of phones, computers, and tablets. It’s a visceral, first-person experience designed for big screens in a language and format that is now natural within our daily lives.” Right, so that’s all a bunch of bullcrap and then some. His so called “immersive thriller” that is “a visceral, first-person experience” is edited like a bad video essay featuring the most on-the-nose acting (if that’s what it can even be called) I’ve ever seen. Ice Cube does not have the dramatic gravitas nor depth to sustain the emotional journey or suspense throughout, especially when 90% of the movie is us staring at his stupid “don’t f*** my daughter” facial expression.

Narratively the movie doesn’t make much sense either. A major plot point is that the aliens have deleted every single piece of data on Earth, and that power stations have shut down causing worldwide blackouts. Yet the whole film’s format is Ice Cube tracking people on GPS and using WiFi, making phone calls, accessing security cameras and even commandeering a drone. So the whole premise doesn’t even work with the format that the director and writers have gone with. Not that this format of watching people take Zoom calls on screens and answering messages has ever been a particularly entertaining cinematic trope. Oh and don’t get me started on all the Amazon product placement. I’m surprised that halfway through the aliens didn’t pause their invasion to give way for a Prime Day sale.

Overall score: 1/10