dir. Rich Lee
H. G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds is a classic, inspiring many adaptations due to its compelling narrative and complex sci-fi ideas. This War of the Worlds understands none of that, instead seeming to think the makings of a classic come in shouting clichéd one-liners (“Hell yeah!”), editing so fast it’s impossible to make out what’s on screen, and one-dimensional portrayals of everything from characters to government conspiracies. Ice Cube plays William, who works for a government department with inexplicable surveillance powers to spy on seemingly every single person on the planet. The movie’s gimmick is that it’s all told through William’s screen: WhatsApp calls, Teams messages, and hacking interfaces which just consist of clicking “sabotage” and asking faceless friends to generate passwords whenever it’s needed. The attacking aliens apparently wish to consume data (a concept conveyed so confusingly and inconsistently it’s not worth trying to understand), and William and his family must save the day via a handy USB stick and Amazon Prime drone. Somewhere in there is a baffling “twist” about the government being the baddies all along, but it makes no difference to anything. The characters certainly don’t seem to care, with Ice Cube never able to muster up more than roughly two and a half different facial expressions. More emotion is derived from the fact the film uses footage from real-life disasters and accidents where real people died, claiming it’s footage from the alien invasion – but this emotion is merely disbelieving outrage, and presumably not what the film was intending. War of the Worlds isn’t just idiotic, it’s egregious.
BMDb 