War of the Worlds, H.G. Wells’ seminal Sci-Fi novel of an alien invasion, is updated in the groan-worthy awful screen life adaptation starring Ice Cube and directed by Rich Lee, now streaming on Amazon Prime.
The new take on War of Worlds, following Welles’s infamous radio broadcast of 1938 (the uproar was largely a myth, btw), George Pal’s in 1953, Speilberg’s massive from 2005, and countless others (public domain, folks) opens weird and awkward before descending into pure awful, eliciting groans and facepalms before reaching the inane conclusion.
For this version, War of the Worlds is updated by Kenny Golde & Marc Hyman to reflect the modern era of surveillance, ultra-connection, and the extent of control with the power to listen in on everything we do. It’s a great idea, ripe for a proper exploration, giving the well-told story of Martian tripods wreaking havoc on Earth a new angle. Unfortunately, it’s all poorly executed in a tone deaf manner.
War of the Worlds is adapted to a screen-life film. We’re watching a computer screen, or a collection of them, the whole movie, an evolution on found footage in a terminally online era. These usually work for me. Searching was in my top 10 of 2018. Missing was solid. I’ll defend the first Unfriended as an undersung flick (featuring a young Dropout breakout, Jacob Wysocki). Here, we see the screen of Ice Cube. He’s a widower, working for the NSA from his desk the day of the attack. He figures out what’s going on, coordinates responses, helps his family, and defeats the aliens, mostly while sitting and glowering at the screen.
The scariest thing in War of the Worlds isn’t the alien death rays from the looming tripods or the murderous vines (a staple of the story, used in one scene). No, it’s the overwhelming surveillance Ice Cube can perform. It eventually evolves to hilarious, but how much control Ice Cube has from a few clicks is too much, but scarily possible. Starting the job, he talks to coworkers on a series of non-secure channels (Signal anyone) and does all the stuff the NSA says they don’t (cough): listens to phone calls, accesses screens, taps into business’s cameras, looks in SmartFridges (really), and a series of other stretches. He’s also tracking a hacker threatening to release government secrets. To add ato al that, he’s constantly meddling in his adult children’s lives: cancelling his son’s videogame purchase as it downloads, arguing with his pregnant daughter over eating healthier after he watches her buy a muffin in a cafe. He tracks his son-in-law’s Amazon delivery van. Our hero, dear readers. You may think, “It’s supposed to be too much overreaching.” Maybe to a degree, but it’s clearer as the movie progresses, it’s meant to be heroic and good for us. Cool over cautionary.
He seems to be the only one at work that day. Of course he is, otherwise how would he be the only one to save the day? Well, he and his family. What a coincidence that his son is a world-renowned programmer and his daughter is the preeminent virologist? And the son-in-law is the world’s best drone delivery driver? The rumours are true, at one point, Ice Cube orders a drive from Amazon, which gets delivered by the drone pilot into a secured building. Amazon presents a movie where Amazon saves the day! Go Amazon! (/s)
The man has the best hacker-fu I’ve ever seen. He moves people around, controls electronics, sends people Amazon gift cards, hacks into everything, and controls Teslas. It gets increasingly silly and stretched. Conclusions are reached with little information to get there; he and his family always have the right thing needed for this moment. It’s a movie overfilled with the hacker trope of “type type type, I’m in”. And we also have the trope that ONLY these people can see the truth of the situation and fix it. As noted before, Ice Cube seems to be the only person at work, but he, his son, daughter, a NASA friend, and the delivery driver are the exact people to take down the aliens, and everyone else is just sitting on their thumbs.
The strangest thing is how everyone treats a killer alien invasion. It has a distance, like we’re watching them play a game together. It barely registers. I get it, directing and acting over Zoom might be hard (filmed in 2020 and on the shelf for five years. Great sign), but Host proved it can be scarily effective. Ice Cube spends the whole film in a one-note glower. The remaining performances, particularly Henry Hunter Hall, Eva Longoria, and Clark Gregg, read their performances like a Cameo. There is no tension or urgency, even when the US is going to nuke DC. No one moves or reads their lines with any sense of purpose. There is no sense of scale in the apparent destruction.
War of the Worlds is dumb, dumb, dumb. Mixed with one of the worst product placements and increasingly annoying and groanworthy moments. Dumb.
Two weeks ago, I asked if House on Eden would remain the worst movie of the year. It does, but War of the Worlds comes within inches it. At least War of the Worlds had things happen during the first half and an actual story (the idea of the update is solid), even if done in a bafflingly terrible manner. We all lose in this War of the Worlds.