They come alone once a generation; movies that silence the endless bickering that comes with an evermore fractured population and manages to unite the entire world in agreement on the nature of their quality. If we’re really lucky, it’s a film that proves to be an instant classic and is beloved seemingly the second it’s released, however, other times we get War Of The Worlds.
Never mind all the other hot button issues that are smothering the world that have us all at each other’s throats, the quickest way to unite us all apparently was to make the most undisputedly awful movie of the year (so far) and in doing so, manage to shit on one of the greatest sci-fi stories in all of fiction. Reading on paper less like a coherent movie and more like a thrown together sketch on SNL (Ice Cube works in government surveillance for the Department Of Homeland Security! Eva Longoria is a scientist for NASA!), the only intrigue this spectacular turkey manages to generate is you’ll wonder how many RPMs H.G. Wells’ body is currently doing in his grave right now due to this desecration of his original work.
Will Radford is working the weekend graveyard shift at DHS as he aids an FBI mission to capture notorious hacker known only as “Disruptor”. However, as he finalises his intel and sends his findings to the agents on the ground, he juggles various aspects of his life around his work monitor such as berating his son, Dave, for wasting his education on playing video games and being overprotective of his pregnant daughter, Faith, since his wife died a few years earlier. While you think that he should really be more focused on the armed team of agents he’s supposed to be guiding through an apartment block to catch their quarry, he takes yet another call from his friend as NASA, Sandra, about some truly strange shit that seems to be going on with the weather.
However, weird storms and funky clouds soon gives way to a much more serious threat when the surface of the earth is peppered with meteor strikes that alarmingly announce the arrival of huge, three-legged alien war machines that soon wreak havoc wherever they go. Zapping buildings with their death weapons and generally being a nuisance, Will uses all the resources that his government job allows him to not only keep tabs on his children, but even let’s him do helpful stuff like hack into a self driving car to transport his wounded daughter out of alien hot zones.
However, soon it becomes apparent that if we’re going to repel this invasion, we’re going to have to find out what the aliens actually want and so Will and the various names in his frequently contacted list all work together to crack this conundrum during this war of the worlds. But when it’s discovered that these tri-legged space bastards are here to consume pure data, Will realises that there’s a very human conspiracy at the core of this attack.
Back in 1938, Orson Welles used the power of radio and suggestion to freak out listeners when his radio play of Wells’ legendary story actually made people think that an invasion of tripod driving aliens was actually occurring. It was an incredible example of how state of the art technology of the time could actually give people a glimpse into what an attack by alien lifeforms could actually be like and on some level, this new 2025 version of the story attempts to do a similar thing by cramming it into a tech based version that sees the whole thing zip up on a computer screen. However, not since the heady days of Battlefield Earth have we had to endure a sci-fi movie that fails on so many levels.
It’s been proven that telling an entire story via the POV of a laptop can be done thanks to such examples as Searching… and Unfriended, however, while the concept is sound, the people behind this War Of The Worlds seem to be involved in some sort of bet to see who can drive the project into the ground first. Surely the casting department are in with a chance of victory simply with the casting of Ice Cube as a government computer geek, yet they find their attempt pipped at the post by a script that not only constantly forgets it’s own set up (with blackouts effecting virtually most of the world, none of the main characters are curiously hampered by this major plot point), but doles out coma inducing spurts of dialogue such as “I don’t have alien invasion insurance!”. As the film bravely that opts to make other lame invasion movies like Independence Day: Resurgence look like fucking 2001 in comparison, Ice Cube himself suddenly takes a decisive lead by delivering a performance that’s genuinely one for the ages. Seemingly unable to evoke such basic emotions as convincingly fearing for his child’s safety (his reaction to his son’s possible death is to look like he accidentally turned off his games console without saving his game) or deliver reams of exposition without sound like he’s reading it blind from a cue card – which, to be fair, he probably is.
It’s a performance of stunning ineptitude and he’s ably backed up by similar, Syfy channel levels of acting by Longoria who somehow inexplicably escapes certain doom more times than Penelope Pitstop and Clark Gregg who must be desperately be missing Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. right about now.
However, despite all this, the acting still isn’t the worst thing about War Of The Worlds and even the terrible special effects that sees tripods rudely composited in actual footage of natural disasters can’t topple the worst offender. No, the absolute nadir of this movie is dollops of product placement so blatant, it makes Brad Pitt ending the zombie apocalypse with a sip of Coke at the end of World War Z look elegant by example. In case you hadn’t already figured out that this was a movie made by Amazon, the film compounds it with an absolutely unbelievable moment where, in an attemptvto get a thumb drive over to Will, he has to place an order on Amazon.com – in fucking real time – and them have it delivered to him via Prime Air by a drone that’s piloted by his daughter’s boyfriend who works for the delivery company. It’s so heavy handed it’s actually insulting and the only way it could have possibly have been more blatant is if the film was retitled Jeff Bezos Saves The World, but just when you think it can’t possibly get any worse, some random dude is bribed to help the fallen drone with a $1000 Amazon gift card. I shit thee not.
Not only have the people behind War Of The Worlds arguably put in a legitimate bid for worse film of the the year, there’s actually a genuine shot that this flick could actually be among the worst of the decade. Yes, there is a need to sometimes update classics in order to keep them relevant for new audiences, but I genuinely don’t think that extends to Ice Cube turning Ludicris lyrics into actual dialogue by yelling “Move Bitch, get out the way!” or making sure the audience is led through the Amazon payment process in the midst of an action scene. If this truly is what it means to update a classic in 2025, then getting fucked up by an alien invasion is probably the best thing for human kind at this point.
Whore Of The Worlds.
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