There are more stories every day about A.I. becoming powerful enough to create entire pieces of filmmaking. Want to see a fourth “Back to the Future” movie? You may soon be able to give an A.I. a prompt to make it for you. I mention this because I’m not sure how different an A.I. version of “Ice Cube stars in a screenlife version of War of the Worlds” would be from the current smash hit on Amazon Prime. Because I refuse to believe actual human beings were involved in most of this nonsense.
Prime Video’s “War of the Worlds” has become an interesting cultural item in the summer of 2025, the most hate-watched thing in years. Notching an amazing 1.0 on Letterboxd and a 0% on Rotten Tomatoes, it has nonetheless become one of the most-watched original films on the streaming service, proving yet again that there’s no such thing as bad publicity. Naturally, we had to check it out. Is it really that bad? It sure is, not only ineptly made in every category that a critic could consider but also truly morally icky, constantly promoting Amazon while telling a story of world powers uniting against what is basically an interstellar data breach. Worst of all, it’s only rarely even “stupid fun,” which was the hope of this critic who has seen every “Sharknado” movie and chuckles at memories of “Mansquito.” Give me a silly movie that knows it’s dumb on a hot summer day every year. This isn’t that. It’s so much dumber than it thinks it is.
What’s somewhat fascinating about “War of the Worlds” is that awful movies are often doomed from day one with pitches that never should have been accepted by someone with control over a budget. But an “Unfriended” or “Searching” take on “War of the Worlds” isn’t actually a horrible idea. We’ve become so attached to our screens—how would the end of the world play out on them?
That’s the basic starting point for the script by Kenneth A. Golde & Marc Hyman, one that centers DHS officer Will Radford (Ice Cube, who I believe shot this on a Zoom call over a single weekend, if even that long), who mans a government surveillance program that he mostly uses to spy on his kids, the troublemaker Dave (Henry Hunter Hall), and his pregnant daughter Faith (Iman Benson). Eva Longoria plays Will’s NASA friend, Clark Gregg is the Director of the Department of Homeland Security, and Andrea Savage is an FBI agent. They all need to have serious talks with their agents.
“War of the Worlds” starts much like the H.G. Wells classic when alien vessels crash on Earth, all of it seen through Will’s computer screen that is also often shooting him for no explained reason. One major drawback is that Cube is so clearly not in a physical space that anyone considered with a generic VFX office behind him that looks like a Zoom background. While we’re on VFX, there are numerous shots of Cube’s glasses reflecting the green screen of whatever he’s looking at that was never filled in. To say the effects in this thing are atrocious would be an understatement. Some of those aforementioned SyFy originals looked better. Significantly.
The entire midsection of “War of the Worlds” consists of Ice Cube starring at a screen and muttering things like “Oh My God” as director Rich Lee and his editor cut on every word. Will’s asides become most of the B-movie appeal of this flick, the only bits of entertainment to be found. My favorite is when a news report can be heard that ends with the line “…why they are here” that’s followed by a half-hearted “What the Hell do they want” from the rap icon.
Where does one begin with the logical leaps of “War of the Worlds”? There are too many inconsistencies to count but one is foundational in that screenlife films are typically real time. It’s kind of the only way to do it. To say that “War of the Worlds” messes with the timeline only scratches the surface. The action around the globe—that is literally called “war of the worlds” in a movie that loves to say its own title—clearly unfolds over days while Will wears the same outfit and his kids are in the same place. If there was ever a continuity person on set, they truly should be interviewed. I have some questions.
To be honest, “War of the Worlds” is mostly just poorly made until the film reveals the motives of the aliens: to steal the planet’s data. There’s something that feels pretty morally bankrupt about a company that has so much of the world’s personal information making a promo piece about how they’re going to protect it from all invaders. Someone actually says, “Our most precious resource on Earth is data.” Oh really, corporate technology overlords? Ew. And that feeling continues as one of the heroes is an actual Amazon delivery person who uses a Prime drone (“the future of delivery”) to save the day. He actually orders something on Amazon in the climax of the film to initiate the plan. Don’t worry, Prime subscribers. We’re not just getting you stuff in record time, we’re going to protect you from all imaginable threats if you use our products of the future. Again, ewwwww.
Go watch “Union” instead. Maybe somewhere other than Amazon.
