War of The Worlds (2025) Movie Review

Avaliable to Watch on Amazon Prime Video

Sigh

War of The Worlds was a science fiction novel written in 1898 by H. G. Wells. A story about Martians coming to Earth in massive tripod machines to take over due to their world becoming uninhabitable. The story is an incredibly long, detailed, thought out story talking about war. Strategies, battles, suffering, destruction, and so much more in incredible detail and a time frame that makes you understand how disastrous this whole scenario would be in the real world. Even if Humanity did come out on top in the end, the amount of casualties and the world afterwards would be drastic. A world that would struggle to continue on as it did before.

It is recognised as one of the finest science fiction stories ever created, leading to countless adaptations and influencing hundreds if not thousands of creatives to explore and create their own stories.

Infamously, in 1938, Orson Wells narrated a dramatic reading over the radio. It was so realistic that people (reportedly) believed that it was real and it caused mass panic and riots. This might have had to do with the fact that some people believed that it was a message of a German invasion, due to the global conflict at the time.

The 1953 movie was the first attempt to adapt the historic, legendary story that had captured the hearts and minds of millions onto the big screen. Starring Gene Barry and directed by Byron Haskin, it became a massive hit. $2,000,000 back in 1953 and becoming the most successful science fiction movie of the year, back when science fiction was a craze that took up most of the cinema at the time. And the critics cited it as a true work of art with the special effects and cinematography being some of the finest of the era.

Then we go to the 2005 film directed by Stephen Spielberg and starring Tom Cruise. This movie was also a huge hit and has more mixed reviews, with many saying the opening minutes are some of the greatest scenes they've seen in film while the rest of the film doesn't quite match up. I personally am a fan, even if I haven't seen the movie in a few years.

Then...came 2025's version.

Released straight to streaming on Amazon Prime in 2025 after being filmed sometime between September 2020 and July 2025. Directed by Rich Lee in his cinematic debut after previously working on music videos and produced by Timur Bekmambetov (the creative mind behind the screen life genre) starring Ice Cube in the lead role. Quite an interesting bunch of people right?

Screenlife is a genre of film that takes place exclusively on computer screens or cell phones. Think found footage, but even lazier. Great examples include Modern Family Season 6 Episode 16 "Connection Lost", Profile (2018), Unfriended (2014), and Searching (2018).

It is a style that can work well in very VERY specific circumstances. Usually horror or plots that need to be told through video call or text messages. It is incredibly cheap and seemingly easy to do, and works in the fact that people can all record themselves with ease in whatever location they need. Not needing to travel or build sets and make it with the smallest crew imaginable.

Does any of those things sound like it would work for a science fiction epic based around aliens coming to Earth in massive mechanical tripod weapons to destroy the world? No? Then you are smarter then the people who made this movie.

This movie is absolutely atrocious. If I didn't plan on making this review, I would've turned it off maybe a quarter of the way through. I saw reviews and videos of people talking about it and was curious if it was really as bad as they said. My curiosity hurts me once again.

Ice Cube plays Department of Homeland Security officer Will Radford, using a program called Guardian to spy on any and all people in the United States. Able to hack into any drone, security camera, phone, laptop, even Tesla car there is to track anyone and everyone. He primarily uses it to spy on his children, which is not invasive or creepy at all. But he is also trying to find a hacker named "Disruptor" which is super original and not cliche who promises to make public a new program that does the same thing called "Goliath" to show the world the government is evil. While Radford is trying to find Disruptor, some NASA contacts send him information and videos of crazy weather and storms that he literally ignores and doesn't care about.

They are about to find Disruptor when they find a fake apartment, realising that they had been tricked AGAIN (they hint at this not being the first time this has happened). But before anything else could happen, a global meteor shower arrives and distracts them from anything else. Just destroying cities and making them focus solely on that.

After a little bit more time, the meteors break open to reveal the tripods and...WOW they look terrible.

This is a movie made in 2025 that somehow has worse or at least similar looking CGI to The Matrix made all the way back in 1999 with the squid tentacle monsters. They seriously look so fake and like they were created from a template and just dropped in without any extra work done. The meteors, the tentacles, the helicopters flying near them all look atrocious. Normally, `I am not somebody who cares or pays much attention to CGI looking good or bad. But this genuinely took me out of the movie and distracted me. Why were PS1 graphics in the real world attacking people?

Anyways, the tripods eventually walk around and destroy important things like power grids, military bases, and other crucial things human society needs. This is literally shown by Ice Cube making an Excel spreadsheet to give us the tiniest bit of exposition as to what the aliens are and what they're doing.

The movie continues on with all sorts of little side plots trying to come together. Ice Cube's daughter gets injured (she's pregnant by the way) and is trying to get to safety. Her boyfriend an Amazon delivery driver (that is important for later) is rushing to try and find her. Ice Cube's son is trying to talk to him but he keeps ignoring him. The military is finally fighting back. And all of this is done over video calls and YouTube videos or news reports.

But then the aliens finally show what they're after.

Our data.

Because...idk.

Goliath was a program to collect all of the data of everyone for...some reason. The aliens knew about this and came to steal the data because they use it as food I think? Anyways, Radford confronts his boss who kicks him out of all DHS network and revokes his access...for like 2 minutes.

Turns out Radford's son is Disruptor and Radford joins a "revolution" if you will to go after the government. Despite the entire internet being sucked of data and information, YouTube still works and Radford posts a YouTube video revealing Goliath to the world...because if I was in the middle of an alien invasion/apocalypse I would definitely be watching YouTube videos.

Anyways, the tripods carry little bugs that fead on the data and the team of people create a virus that infects the robots and kill them.

I just save you 90 minutes of your life.

DO NOT WATCH THIS MOVIE.

I don't even want to talk about how this is just blatant advertising for Amazon, since the world is saved by ordering a flash drive off of Amazon (again, I thought the internet was down) and then it is delivered to the DHS building by a drone evading dozens of super advanced tripods. Like...this is the most blatant advertising/propaganda film I can think of. This movie is seriously bad. Don't watch it. It's not even so bad it's good. Like it's just...wow.

0% on Rotten Tomatoes is too kind.