Amazon’s War of the Worlds is a Disasterpiece of Epic Proportions!
Image courtesy of Prime Video
By Luis Zonenberg
Continuing our look back at last year’s films, I wanted to reexamine what many deemed to be among the worst of the bunch. From its baffling casting decisions to the laughable VFX, it’s easy to see why Amazon Prime’s War of the Worlds received such a poor reception from both critics and audiences alike. The film even received a Golden Raspberry nomination for Worst Picture! Let’s take a closer look at it and see if it’s truly worth all the hate.
The story focuses on DHS surveillance analyst Will Radford (Ice Cube), who is working with the FBI to track down a mysterious hacker known as “the Disruptor.” Things take a turn for the worse when meteors begin to fall on Earth, ushering in an alien invasion as “Tripods” emerge from the rubble and begin to attack all the data centers on the planet. The State Department declares a state of emergency, locking Will inside his office and complicating his personal mission to get his pregnant daughter, Faith (Iman Benson), to safety.
The film tries to go all out with its modern take on H.G. Wells’ classic story, but it loses track of the novel’s heart in the process. The movie offers dated commentary on global surveillance and how technology has advanced such that it can violate citizens’ privacy. This new angle fails to connect to H.G. Wells’ classic story; if anything, it sends the exact opposite message of what made the novel so famous.
There were numerous plot holes and weird conveniences, like the aliens knocking out all of Earth’s satellites days before they invaded, without humans taking notice. By far the most baffling creative decision here, though, was to stylize the film as a screenlife movie, which fully cuts off any sense of scope or immersion for the audience to have here. It makes a bit more sense when you find out they were rushing this into production back during the COVID-19 pandemic, but now it just feels out of place, maybe serving more as a time capsule of that awkward era.
Another major problem here was the numerous product placements that were shamelessly integrated into the story. It is very clear that this film is from Amazon Prime since they glorify the brand in almost every scene of the film. From one of the characters being an Amazon delivery driver to Will having to save the planet by placing an order on Amazon so a drone could fly out to him to deliver the macguffin, the product placements here are so painful that it rips away what little charm the film has.
The cast overall struggled with their performances, including the lead actor, Ice Cube. Ice Cube simply does not have the charm nor the dramatic acting chops needed for his character, with his underreactions providing more laughs than haunting thrills. Other supporting stars like Eva Longoria are grossly miscast. She failed to portray a believable depiction of a NASA scientist’s reactions in such a situation as the film’s. Clark Gregg, who was typecast as an overbearing security official, was the only competent actor fit for his role.
The visual style of the “screen-life film” at first works with respect to its depiction of an average day for Will, while encapsulating how engrossing technology has become today. But that charm wears off real fast, not making a lick of sense when the film clarifies that the cameras are down and WiFi is on the fritz. It fails to embody the terror of the situation and only exists to complement the fast-aging commentary.
The VFX used overall were laughably bad, to say the least. It really shows this was a direct-to-streaming film, since the animation was on par with movies like Foodfight. The animation on the aliens looked so cheap and poorly rendered that half the time I swore they were just bad computer graphics on my viewing screen. They tried to cover up bad VFX with bad glitching effects, which only made the animation appear worse.
This film might actually be one of the worst book adaptations I have ever seen, as it is entirely missing what made the original story so terrifying and thought-provoking. The novel critiqued the unchecked power of imperialism, showing the ultimate limitations of advanced technology. Instead of throwing a bullseye, Amazon blindly threw the dart and never even hit the board, ultimately recreating a pale imitation of what made the novel so compelling.
Forsaking the elemental terror of its classic source material, Amazon’s War of the Worlds is an absolutely dreadful adaptation that lacks any sense of subtlety or charm that would make it at least bearable to sit through.
War of the Worlds is now streaming on Amazon Prime.
Rating: ★☆☆☆☆
