Julien Neaves, Sci Fi Head Writer
Plot: Will Radford, a top cybersecurity analyst for Homeland Security, must save the world from an alien invasion.
Review: Not since Battlefield Earth have I wanted a movie to end as much as I wanted War of the Worlds (2025) to roll its closing credits. The movie is only an hour and 29 màinutes long but it feels a never-ending slog. It’s actually kind of impressive for a film to get every single aspect wrong. And sadly, not in a so-bad-it’s-good way, but just a painfully terrible way. With an intergalactic SPOILER ALERT let’s dive into this crap pile.
Let’s start at the unmitigated gall of this movie to adapt HG Wells seminal 1898 novel The War of the Worlds, which had an iconic 1953 film adaptation that holds up to this day. TO THIS DAY! And I’m not a huge fan of the 2005 Tom Cruise version directed by the legendary Stephen Spielberg, but at least that one had spectacular visual and sound effects and some exciting set pieces. But the new version? The visual effects look like a PS1 game and a Sci Fi Channel Saturday movie had a baby. They are cheap, ugly and hurt my eyes. How do the 1953 tripods look better than a 2025 movie?!
And speaking of cheap, the Powers That Be clearly tried to save a lot of cash with this one. Most of the movie is set within screens (screenlife) and viewed through the eyes of protagonist Will played by Ice Cube (we’ll get to him soon, don’t worry). This is a structure that was used with great effect in the connected thriller movies Searching and Missing, and has been popping up in horror movies like Host and Unfriended. But here it is so poorly implented that it sucks whatever little energy there is in the film right out. And it feels like the setup was meant to keep production costs low. I suspect this was also the reason the film uses more stock footage that some documentaries. I am not even joking.
Now it is time to address the Will Radford in the room. In terms of rappers-turned-actors I think Ice Cube (real name O’Shea Jackson Jr.) is one of the better ones. He was fantastic in the comedy Friday and drama Boyz n the Hood, and was one of the better aspects of schlocky horror Anaconda and John Carpenter’s Sci Fi misfire Ghosts of Mars. But in War of the Worlds? Either he somehow forgot how to act or was just phoning it in for the paycheck. I suspect the latter. There is zero energy or believability here. And that is a major problem, because his concern for his pregnant scientist daughter and gamer/secret hacker son is supposed to be the heart of the film. But this movie got as much heart as the Tin Man.
The rest of the cast, which includes Eva Longoria and the MCU’s Clark Gregg, all feel like they are just going through the motions. The characters here are so one dimensional that I did not give two hoots about any of the them and felt not a whit of tension when they were in danger. Nor was I was fooled by the multiple fakeouts. I would say “nice try” but I would be lying.
But the biggest turd on this poop pile is the plot. You see, they couldn’t stick with the old “aliens want to conquer the Earth for its rescources”. Oh no. These vastly superior aliens eat data and it is a massive secret government surveillance programme that attracted them to Earth. It sounds as stupid as it is, and it’s a hamfisted attempt to speak about the evils of government surveillance. They also try to say something about the dangers of helicopter parenting, but it is similarly clumsy and ineffective.
We also have ostensibly intelligent characters doing dumb things every minute (scientist daughter pulling out spike and bleeding out, agent Eva <can’t be bothered to look up her character name> walking into alien craft without a hazmat suit, or Will exposing himself online to stick it to his boss) and you have a script not worth the paper it was printed on.
The film also makes it abundantly clear that it is a Prime Video exclusive by the numerous times “Amazon” is mentioned. They even have an Amazon delivery drone save the day. Yay! There is product placement and there is an ad masquerading as a movie. I’ll let you guess which one War of the Worlds is.
I actively hate this movie and I find nothing redeemable about it. And it defecates on the legacy of its iconic source material. War of the Worlds is one of the worst movies ever made, Sci Fi or otherwise, and I would say it is only good for flushing down the toilet, but I don’t want you to clog up your plumbing.
Editor Jules’ Score: 1 out of 10
Have you seen this mess? How would you rate it? And you can check out more Sci Fi content below:
Julien “Editor Jules” Neaves is a TARDIS-flying, Force-using Trekkie whose bedroom stories were by the Cryptkeeper, learned to be a superhero from Marvel, but dreams of being Batman. I love promoting Caribbean film (Cariwood), creating board games and I am an aspiring author. I say things like “13 flavours of awesome sauce”. Read more