War of the Worlds review by Bobby Blakey
Throughout the years there have been numerous retellings of the H.G. Wells classic War of the Worlds. In 2020 during the COVID lockdown, director of Nightwatch and Wanted, Timur Bekmambetov teamed up with director Rich Lee to bring a modern-day retelling of the classic tale using the screenlife film style that Bekmambetov pioneered. The film features a great cast including Ice Cube, Eva Longoria, Clark Gregg, Iman Benson, Henry Hunter Hall, Devon Bostwick, Michael O’Neill and Andrea Savage. Could this new vision bring something new to the story, or will it fail to download the virus?
War of the Worlds follows follows Will Radford, a top cyber-security analyst for Homeland Security, who spends his days tracking potential threats to national security through a mass surveillance program, until an attack by an unknown entity leads him to question whether the government is hiding something from him … and the rest of the world.
The trailer for this film dropped out of nowhere and looked pretty bad and with the horrible reviews coming out I had little hope for this film. At the same time, I am a fan of Ice Cube as well as Bekmambetov’s screenlife film Found so I hoped there might be something here. Now that I have witnessed the latest invasion, I can say that I don’t think this film is as bad as most of the reviews, but that isn’t to say it’s a very good film either.
When handled right the screenlife aspect can be compelling and initially I found the film interesting. The mix of his work with the government and his obsession of spying on his own kids was interesting and a bit scary seeing it in action. Once we get into the invasion itself it starts to unravel in various ways but still has some highlights. It gets silly in tone and trying to deliver the sci-fi action and never really works despite it trying its best.
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I appreciate what was put together here, especially being during the lockdown. When it finally gets into the invasion the dialogue gets bad with a lot of it sounding like it’s just being read as opposed to acted. The convenience of events and those involved is too predictable and goofy to be impactful. It tries to build tension from the invasion and the dangers of his family out in the world but jumps around so much you never really care about any of it.
As I sat and watched this, I kept thinking it wasn’t horrible and how could this have worked, and it came to me. This entire movie reminds me of a ride at Universal more than a film. Had I been in some sort of vehicle and being whisked around amidst the alien invasion with Cube and Longoria leading the charge this would have worked to perfection. Sadly, I was sitting in my home theaters and not getting the excitement of a ride, and it just never worked as intended. It doesn’t help that there are varying elements that make it more of an Amazon promotion which further takes you out of carrying if this world is saved at all.
There is a good idea here and it could have been a great flick, but it just never finds its way out of below average. Decide for yourself and check out War of the Worlds streaming now on Prime Video.