One of the worst films of the year
Summary
War of the Worlds doesn’t have much to recommend aside from exploring some interesting themes of privacy; otherwise it feels like an extended promo for Amazon and looks like it was shot with a potato.
Plot: A grounded sci-fi film in the vein of District 9, that touches on themes of privacy versus surveillance.
Review: There have been countless interpretations over the years of H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds and the latest starring Ice Cube and Eva Longoria may well be the worst one yet.
They at least try doing something a little different with the entire film done on various computer/phone screens which sounds cool but gets tiresome very quickly. The film also looks like it has a budget of 4 dollars as everything looks cheap and feels like a student project.
The alien tripods still have the cool sound effects similar to Spielberg’s film, but the CG is shockingly poor.
The script is amazing though; a highlight is Ice Cube shouting “move, bitch get out the way!” which shows the quality of what we’re dealing with here. It alludes to themes of privacy and government overreach which is prescient for these times and arguably the best aspect of the film.
This also just feels like a promo for Amazon which shows how often it’s mentioned; no wonder it’s on Prime Video.
On the action front we get to see on monitors as the aliens attack and it actually does have a couple of cool moments but there is nothing about this movie that will make you think it was a worthwhile watch.
Overall, War of the Worlds has a few interesting ideas, but the execution doesn’t hold up feeling cheap and gimmicky. Ice Cube has a few choice lines but otherwise you can skip this.