SPOILER-FREE PLOT SUMMARY
A surveillance agent with the Department of Homeland Security, Will Radford (played by Ice Cube), is having a typical day at work locked in his tech closet trying to combat various pop-up national security threats. During a sting operation to bring down a nameless, faceless cyber terrorist called “Disruptor,” Radford and his friend Dr. Sandra Salas (Eva Longoria) witness an alien invasion. As the world becomes united in trying to defend the large “tripods,” Radford and Salas discover the aliens are going after large data centers. Along with his son and daughter who join him remotely, Radford attempts to plant a virus into those data centers in hopes of thwarting the invasion.
SPOILER-FREE REVIEW
Amazon tried to sneak this one through with little fanfare or attention… and that’s for good reason.
This would’ve been a topical release during the COVID-19 pandemic and probably would’ve been applauded if it had been released during the pandemic. Not because it’s a good movie but because they had clearly taken the hand they where dealt (where nobody could get together) and still found a way to make a movie. Instead, Prime Video released it literally five years after the world shut down, well after society has returned to a (relatively) normal state. That delay works if the premise of the project is a snapshot of it’s time but not if it’s technique is.
With the exception of a long, manifesto-esque ramble around the end of the second act, Cube and Longoria do well with what they’re given. The real star of the show, however, is Iman Benson. The role of Faith Radford calls for a strong, young woman to be distancing herself from her father, being pregnant for the first time, taking pride in her boyfriend and suffering possible life threatening injuries all at the same time… and she crushes it. It’s not everyday an actor can use a bad movie as a springboard for her career but here we are.
We’ve talked about this on the podcast but anytime something has an agenda, I’m immediately resistant. In this case, Faith’s boyfriend is an Amazon delivery driver and, therefore, whenever he’s on screen, it just seems like one big commercial. I’m not suggesting Prime Video should’ve made the character of Mark a DHL or FedEx driver but it has to be known, at the board room level, that making a key character — with a key plot point, by the way — a walking billboard for the streaming service the project will eventually be on is going to come off as obnoxious to the audience.
At the end of the day, WAR OF THE WORLDS was a great idea in theory. Get a collection of actors to record pieces on their own and use the digital landscape of the 21st century in order to tell the story. That’s exactly how some of us would experience breaking news to this level and, for that, WAR OF THE WORLDS hits it right on the head. But, with the amateur special effects, camera tricks to cut corners and the novelty of the style eventually wearing off, it’s unfortunately ruined. Also, if the official run time is less than 90 minutes, why does it feel like three hours?
Solid attempt to bring the H.G. Wells’ 1898 classic novel up to date but with bad execution, shameless self-serving product placement and horrendous release timing, WAR OF THE WORLDS should’ve been left in the era it was shot in.
JKG SCORE: 4.0
Untitled Film Project 