ICE CUBE’S WAR OF THE WORLDS (2025) THE UNINTENTIONAL COMEDY HIT OF THE YEAR

WAR OF THE WORLDS (2025) – A new chapter has been added to the history of H.G. Wells adaptations. Ice Cube stars in Amazon’s feature-length product placement for itself. In a moment of Cosmic Comedy, Amazon straight-facedly attached the tagline “It’s worse than you think” to this flick.

Yes, obviously that was meant in the sense that the crisis involving invading aliens is worse than you think, but my God you’d have to be an idiot or have the proverbial balls the size of church bells to approve that tagline for your own company’s movie production.

Master thespian Ice Cube stars as a government surveillance operative who abuses his position to violate people’s civil rights all day long while also obsessively spying on his own family members on taxpayer time. AND HE’S OUR SUPPOSED HERO!

Ice Cube Makes Faces should have been this thing’s title, since he does nothing but sit in a chair exercising his facial muscles while spending face time with us and absurdly playing his Big Brother Will Protect You role to the hilt. And lest you fear that this adaptation will be less than faithful to the source material, the filmmakers even included the part where one of H.G. Wells’ characters says “Get your skinny ass over there!”

I now want to see an entire Cinematic Universe of Ice Cube starring in movies made from H.G. Wells stories. I’m sure the Invisible Man’s reaction to his condition would be something like “DAAAMN!”

Keeping the comedy going, one character is an Amazon delivery driver who helps deliver the baby of Ice Cube’s daughter when the alien invasion injures her to such a degree that she can’t make it to the hospital.

I can’t help but suspect that the entire movie was built around someone hitting on the very obvious notion that since viruses foiled the alien attack in Wells’ novel a computer virus could be used to foil the alien attack in this neo-Psychotronic film.

Taking things from the top, this production tries to update Orson Welles’ radio version of War of the Worlds by presenting the story to us like it’s one big Zoom meeting but with additional footage from the camera phones of assorted characters.

What first seems like terrorists or a hostile nation hacking into America’s computer systems turns out instead to be the work of extraterrestrial invaders. Credit where it’s due, this War of the Worlds does a not-terrible version of the scene in which the recently landed alien vessel opens fire on the human crowds gathered around it.

We also get a new variation on the huge Tripods that the aliens use for their attacks. Those war machines even use phallic rods to “eat” data, which is their reason for invading Earth.

Tastelessly enough, stock news footage from real-life disasters and wars fills the screen with CGI Tripods added here and there. This flick also tries for some of that “humanity unites against a common threat” sentimentality from Will Smith’s Independence Day. It’s a very pale imitation and it doesn’t come off.

And through it all is Ice Cube’s face as he oversees the storyline, whirls around in his desk chair, pokes at his Amazon novelty button as if doing so is cool and just generally tries to add Action Hero quips and mannerisms to his performance. It really seems ridiculous when your character is just sitting at a desk the whole movie.

For some reason, Ice Cube likes to diss his son for playing video games all day, but the young man’s video game savvy is part of what saves the day. Besides, who is Ice Cube’s father character to talk when all his actions and reactions during the flick make him look like he’s doing nothing but playing video games himself?

If the relentless Amazon product placements don’t make it clear to you, this movie is available on Amazon Video right now. Will having Amazon Prime help protect you from the aliens? Tune in and see! Seriously, if you enjoy bad movies this rendition of War of the Worlds will have you laughing until your sides ache!