“War of the Worlds” A Sloppy, Disjointed Re-imagining of the Classic Story

Initial streaming release date: July 30, 2025

Streaming service: Amazon Prime Video

So, last year, a re-imagining of H.G. Wells' book “War of the Worlds” ended up being released quietly on Amazon Prime Video (which is usually a major red flag when a movie is quietly released). After a while, I saw online the terrible reactions from viewers who have streamed the movie. After being curious to see how bad the new adaptation could be, I finally checked it out and I can see why they quietly released it on streaming.

A computer security analyst working for the US government finds his daily life disrupted by an alien attack. Accustomed to dealing with virtual threats, his struggle extends to secrets the government may be hiding.

Before I get into the negative aspects of this re-imagining, one angle of the movie that actually got mixed reactions from viewers is how they used surveillance and familiar tech, like Zoom, Teams and Amazon, to help look at what’s going on with the alien attacks and looking for a notorious hacker who’s trying to expose a government secret file. This surveillance angle is sort of interesting, yet completely overdone since we see all of the action and the alien attacks through the computer screens - which, after a while, can get really annoying. 

Sure, this surveillance angle is sort of a unique way to tell the infamous story. Yet, after a while it does feel pointless as the overall story eventually feels less engaging due to the overuse of computer screens. The tech side of things can also be very inconsistent (for example, while all the satellites were either down or completely destroyed, the analyst can still somehow use the tech fairly easily without the satellites.

The alien attacks that we get to see throughout the movie can get distracting due to the terrible visual effects. The CGI used in this movie is probably worse than some of the movies that the SyFy Channel produces - even the based video glitches look really bad. And while watching the movie, you can tell that the filmmakers just superimposed the poorly digital alien tech to real disaster footage (which they might have done due to a low budget).

The movie also seemed like a 90 minute Amazon commercial since throughout most of the movie we see so many Amazon products and mentions of an Amazon product. That also could be why they just dumped it on Prime Video.

Also, the acting in the movie is really bad. There are a few moments where we see Ice Cube (playing the analyst) trying to explain something on the computer screen and his performance is so boring it honestly seems like he was just reading his lines off the actual script. This is also one of those movies that can be very forgettable and nothing really stands out.

The 2025 version of “War of the Worlds” is widely considered a critical and commercial disaster, infamous for its “screenlife” format (viewed entirely through computer screens), heavy Amazon product placement and a truly nonsensical plot about the real reason why the aliens came to Earth. 

Cast: Ice Cube (William Radford); Eva Longoria (NASA Scientist Sandra Sala); Iman Benson (Faith Radford); Henry Hunter Hall (David Radford); Devon Bostick (Mark Goodman); Andrea Savage (FBI Field Agent Sheila Jeffries); Clark Gregg (NSA Director Donald Briggs); Michael O-Neill (Secretary of Defense Walter Crystal).

Writer/director: Kenny Golde (writer); Marc Hyman (writer) (Show Dogs; The Perfect Score); Rich Lee (director)

MPA: Rated PG-13 for some sci-fi action/violence, strong language and bloody images   (runtime 91 minutes)

Trivia: The movie was filmed in 2020 using COVID protocols, which forced people to stay at home and work remotely as much as possible (which explains the computer screen/surveillance usage). 

As I was about to send in this review, I looked up online and found out that this new version “War of the Worlds” has just been nominated for several Golden Raspberry Awards (or the Razzies) - which it does deserve. So, “War of the Worlds” has been nominated for the following: Worst Picture, Worst Director, Worst Screenplay, Worst Actor (Ice Cube); Worst Screen Couple (Ice Cube and his Zoom camera) and Worst Remake, Rip-Off or Sequel.

• First mentioned in 2020 as an untitled Bekmambatov feature starring Ice Cube for Universal. It resurfaced in July 2025, when it was released straight to streaming as a free movie on Amazon Prime. It was not screened for critics.

• Filmed during the summer and fall of 2020 under COVID-19 protocols, which forced people to stay at home and work remotely as much as possible. As a result, the director and cast didn't work face to face. The movie wasn't released until 5 years later.

• Universal were sold on the movie by a pitch from Bekmambetov (who had acted as a producer on successful films in this format) where he explained it would allow them to sell it as a high-budget science fiction movie but produce it for the cost of a cheap TV thriller.

• Controversially, the movie superimposed footage of aliens in to real-life terrorist attacks, plane crashes and other atrocities at the direction of one of the movie's producers. As reported by special effects house Corridor Crew, one of the contractors chose to create a photorealistic CGI version of one of these incidents rather than allow the real footage to be included (despite said producer's insistence).