Ice Cube’s War of the Worlds Fails Spectacularly – A Glitchy Amazon Disaster

‘War of the Worlds’ Review: Ice Cube Headlines a Disastrous Movie Retelling of H.G. Wells’ Alien Invasion Classic

Some classics should be left alone. And others, like H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds, deserve intelligent reimagining—not a low-budget, glitch-ridden desktop drama that feels like a parody. Unfortunately, Prime Video’s new adaptation, starring Ice Cube, delivers none of the suspense, awe, or artistry of previous retellings. Instead, it packages alien apocalypse in the form of video calls, clunky surveillance footage, and yes—Amazon product placements.

Ice Cube, once the face of hard-hitting hip hop and comedy franchises like Friday, now plays Will Radford, a Homeland Security analyst who somehow monitors the world’s most significant alien invasion from the comfort of a solitary desk. No team, no field agents on standby—just Will, his computer, and an uncanny amount of access to every security feed across America. It’s the surveillance state gone wild—but not in a cool, Black Mirror way.

Ice Cube Meets Desktop Disaster

We’ve seen the “screenlife” format work before in films like Searching and Host, where the limitations of a computer screen enhanced the tension. But here, the visual storytelling falls flat. Director Rich Lee, better known for his VFX work and music videos, crafts a film where the entire invasion is viewed through low-res YouTube uploads, blurry CCTV, and Zoom calls.

Ice Cube gives a two-note performance: scowl and scream. His character, Will, spends the first half of the film yelling at his kids—Faith (Iman Benson), who’s pregnant, and Dave (Henry Hunter Hall), a gamer who’s apparently wasting his life. It’s less about an alien invasion and more about parental micromanagement from a man who spies on his daughter’s fridge and lectures his son mid-video game session.

A Fireball of Missed Opportunities

Just when you think the movie might pick up, fireballs suddenly fall from the sky. Cities crumble (off-screen, mostly), people scream (from a distance), and the world reacts with confusingly calm urgency. Enter Eva Longoria as NASA scientist Sandra Salas, who pops in briefly to warn about the incoming meteors—only to be ignored by Will, who delivers the gem: “I watch people, not weather.”

What should be the movie’s turning point—alien tripods bursting from meteor shells—falls victim to the screenlife format. Instead of jaw-dropping VFX, we get grainy clips of people filming the invasion on their phones. One slightly cool scene, where a tripod unfolds in sleek chrome menace, is buried in a sea of buffering.

Parenting, Privacy, and Prime Delivery?

The movie shifts gears halfway, dropping any pretense of thematic depth. It tries to juggle a message about digital privacy, but mostly, it’s a lecture on overprotective parenting. Will’s obsession with controlling his kids borders on creepy. And yet, he barely notices the scale of destruction happening everywhere else.

In a bizarre twist, Faith goes into labor mid-invasion, forcing Will to monitor her vitals while juggling video calls from the President and field agents. The emotional arc feels hollow, especially since the script gives us little reason to care about the family dynamic.

And then comes the line that makes you wonder if this is all just an elaborate satire: “I need you to place an official order on Amazon to activate the drone,” says Faith’s boyfriend Mark, who drives a Prime delivery van. Seriously.

Corporate Cameo or Crossed Wires?

It’s hard to ignore the overwhelming presence of Amazon branding. Prime trucks, Alexa-like commands, and even a drone-controlled solution all scream product placement. While War of the Worlds is technically a Prime Video original, it plays more like a feature-length commercial than a cinematic experience.

Is this meta-commentary on corporate overreach? Doubtful. The tone is too clumsy to be clever. What could have been a sharp satire instead becomes a shallow advertisement.

When Ice Cube Yells at Aliens

The only moment of unintentional brilliance comes late in the film, when Ice Cube stands up, points at the screen, and shouts, “Take your intergalactic asses back home!” It’s so over-the-top it almost redeems the film—almost.

Sadly, nothing else lives up to that meme-worthy line. Instead of suspense or world-building, we get clunky exposition, generic military stock footage, and a runtime that somehow feels longer than it is.

Final Verdict: A Misfire from Every Angle

War of the Worlds (2025) had potential. The original story is a timeless classic, one that explores humanity’s fragility and arrogance in the face of greater intelligence. But this version replaces philosophical weight with surveillance tech gimmicks and Amazon drones.

It’s a narrative that never fully commits—neither to sci-fi spectacle nor to intimate character drama. With a muddled script, lackluster performances, and cringe-worthy branding, this film is less of a thrilling invasion and more of a forgettable interruption.

Rating: ★☆☆☆☆ (1/5)

Watch it if:

• You want to see Ice Cube yell at aliens.

• You enjoy watching movies entirely from a desktop POV.

• You think Prime delivery drivers are the unsung heroes of intergalactic warfare.

Skip it if:

• You respect H.G. Wells’ original masterpiece.

• You want real tension, real action, or real sci-fi.

• You didn’t come to Amazon Prime for product placement dressed as plot.