War of the Worlds – Film Review

The surprise-released updated take on War of the Worlds is a prime example of ambition completely disconnected from execution. Marketed as a modernized, “screenlife” take on H. G. Wells’ classic tale of alien invasion, the movie instead emerges as a frustrating and creatively bankrupt slog, one of the most baffling attempts at updating a literary masterpiece in recent memory. With direction by Rich Lee, a screenplay by Kenneth A. Golde and Marc Hyman, and a cast including Ice Cube, Eva Longoria, Clark Gregg, Andrea Savage, Henry Hunter Hall, Iman Benson, Devon Bostick, and Michael O’Neill, this should have been a tense digital-age thriller. Instead, it’s a catastrophe that will go down as one of the most ill-conceived studio projects of the year.

The earliest sign of trouble wasn’t even in the movie itself but in how the studio handled its release. In a move that should have set off alarms for even casual moviegoers, the trailer for War of the Worlds was dropped just one week before its release date. For a supposed big-budget reimagining of a sci-fi classic, this last-minute marketing push screamed “no confidence.” Hollywood has a history of quietly dumping movies they know will tank, and this was a textbook case.

The trailer itself did little to inspire confidence—it was a jumbled mess of talking heads on video calls, glitchy surveillance feeds, and Ice Cube looking perpetually annoyed while mumbling his lines. Instead of building excitement, it gave the impression of a mid-tier streaming thriller that might have been filmed entirely during a pandemic on Zoom. For audiences familiar with the grandeur and terror of previous War of the Worlds adaptations, this was a shockingly small and uncinematic vision.

Screenlife films—movies that unfold entirely on computer screens and digital interfaces—can be effective when used to heighten tension or immerse audiences in the immediacy of technology-driven storytelling. Films like Searching and Host proved that the format can deliver genuine suspense and creativity. Unfortunately, War of the Worlds demonstrates the complete opposite, exposing every weakness the format can have in the hands of uninspired filmmakers.

The film follows Will Radford (Ice Cube), a Homeland Security cyber-security analyst who monitors national threats through an omnipresent mass surveillance program. One day, a mysterious digital disruption hits the network, sparking suspicion that the government is hiding an extraterrestrial threat. What could have been a tense cat-and-mouse thriller quickly devolves into 100 minutes of watching a bored-looking Ice Cube click through windows, mutter under his breath, and stare at red flashing alerts on his desktop.

The “action” unfolds entirely on computer screens—video calls with NASA expert Dr. Sandra Salas (Eva Longoria), news broadcasts with clunky exposition, and security camera feeds of cities being vaguely attacked. There is almost no cinematic energy to the film, as it sacrifices any sense of scale or awe for static, low-resolution imagery. For a story about alien invasion, it is stunningly claustrophobic, with the aliens themselves barely glimpsed through glitchy footage that looks like unfinished previsualization.

The cast seems as lost as the story itself. Ice Cube’s Will Radford is ostensibly the emotional center of the film, torn between protecting his son Dave (Henry Hunter Hall) and unraveling a government conspiracy. Yet Cube plays the role with the energy of a man stuck in a mandatory work Zoom meeting. His trademark charisma is nowhere to be found, replaced by visible disinterest.

Eva Longoria fares slightly better as Dr. Sandra Salas, but her performance is buried under endless technobabble and stilted dialogue delivered through glitchy webcam feeds. Clark Gregg as Homeland Security Director Donald Briggs seems like he’s reprising a less charming version of Agent Coulson, but without any of the wit or authority that role carried. Andrea Savage’s FBI agent Sheila Jeffries and the supporting cast, including Iman Benson and Devon Bostick, have little to do other than yell panicked lines.

The most unintentionally funny performance comes from Henry Hunter Hall as Dave, Will’s video-gamer son. His primary contribution to the story is screaming into a headset while playing an online shooter. It’s crazy just how little he gets to do in this story.

The screenplay by Kenneth A. Golde and Marc Hyman is a patchwork of clichés, pseudoscience, and exposition dumps. Almost every plot development is delivered via on-screen text or a news clip, giving the impression of a first draft never fleshed out into a compelling narrative. The film constantly mistakes frantic digital activity for suspense. Characters click, scroll, and hack, but the stakes are never felt because the audience is disconnected from the action and emotion.

Even when the film finally attempts to pay homage to Wells’ classic source material with scenes of destruction, they are presented through jerky livestreams and low-res drone footage. Climactic sequences should be awe-inspiring, but it feels like watching a buffering YouTube video of someone else playing a low-budget disaster simulator.

Perhaps most damning, the movie doesn’t even attempt to capture the existential horror that makes The War of the Worlds timeless. The original story is about human vulnerability in the face of cosmic indifference. This adaptation reduces that concept to a digital treasure hunt with some truly horrendous dialogue. The result is neither thrilling nor thought-provoking—just tedious.

If a screenlife film can’t rely on performances or plot, it at least needs to excel technically. War of the Worlds fails here too. The editing is clumsy, switching between feeds in a way that feels random rather than purposeful. The user interfaces and graphics look dated, resembling a 2010s procedural TV show rather than a high-stakes cinematic experience. Sound design is equally uninspired, with generic alarm tones and stock “glitch” effects repeating ad nauseam.

Visual effects, when they finally appear, are abysmal. The aliens are indistinct, rubbery CGI blobs with no design personality. It’s astonishing that a film bearing the War of the Worlds title could offer less spectacle than an amateur fan project on YouTube.

Perhaps the most frustrating aspect of War of the Worlds is how it squanders one of the most legendary names in science fiction. The title promises epic scope and terror; instead, audiences get a feature-length Zoom call peppered with cheap effects and a cast clearly just fulfilling contract obligations. By the time the abrupt ending rolls around—delivered, of course, as a final text message on Will’s phone—viewers are left not with awe or fear, but relief that the ordeal is finally over.

Rich Lee’s War of the Worlds is a misfire on every conceivable level. It reduces a seminal alien-invasion story to a lifeless, small-screen gimmick. Between a disengaged cast, a script drowning in techno-nonsense, and visuals that make a Syfy Original look polished, it’s hard to imagine who this film was made for. Even the studio’s last-minute marketing dump suggested they knew they had a dud.

This is not only the worst adaptation of H. G. Wells’ novel to date but one of the most dispiriting science fiction releases in recent memory. It is proof that some stories demand scope, vision, and craft—and that reducing them to webcams and dashboards is a creative dead end.