Spoilers ahead. You’ll be fine.
There is a movie somewhere, some how, some time, that will take the core idea of the new War of the Worlds, starring Ice Cube, and make it work, but this is not that movie. The core idea here is that our lives play out on screen, and in fact, the entirety of this movie does play out on screens. Mostly, it’s on Department of Homeland Security officer Will Radford’s monitor at work in DC, but sometimes it’s on mobile phones when the action needs to go – pardon the pun – mobile.
The fact that director Rich Lee sticks with the on-screen concept throughout this movie is a testament to something, but given the outcome, it’s hard to say exactly what. As David St. Hubbins and Nigel Tufnel once said, it’s a fine line between stupid and clever. I found myself repeatedly waiting for the moment when we would “go live,” when the story would finally break out of the literal box that held it, but that moment never came.
So let’s forgive that sin, since at least we can argue that the point could have been to remind us how we’re all trapped in digital boxes nowadays. Instead, let’s focus on that old standby requirement for movie viewing…
Suspension of Disbelief
Countless times, I’ve had people tell me to lighten up, let it go, and suspend my disbelief. All these comments indicate that I am the problem, not the movie. I could counter argue that my favorite genres of film are sci fi, horror, and fantasy, all of which absolutely require immediate suspension of disbelief, but no one cares about that. If I have something bad to say about a movie, it’s just me being crabby and unwilling to go along for the ride the movie is offering.
But this movie.
Let’s count some disbelievable things.
The Ice Man Cometh
First off, it stars Ice Cube, and look, I really like Ice Cube. I admire that he’s been able to translate from edgy musician to widely appealing actor, but much of his appeal in film is that he usually plays a caricature of himself. There is no caricature of Ice Cube that is a Grade A Level US Government Hacker operating at the top of the DHS and directly influencing world affairs with his mad skillz at computers, surveillance, and the like. I didn’t even try to find a confused photo of Ice Cube from this movie for the featured image of this post; that’s simply all there was to find.
There are many sequences where I have to guess Ice Cube finished the shot and said to the director, “Okay, I’m beginning to understand what to do in this scene. Let me go again.” And then the director probably calmly put a hand on Cube’s shoulder and said, “Ice, this isn’t that kind of film. PRINT IT!”
It’s the End of the World… and I Feel Fine
The plot involves FBI agents seeking a hacker known as the Disruptor just as our planet gets hit by a wide ranging meteor storm. I’ve long been amazed at how movie characters can gloss over things that would have a profound, lifelong impact on any of us in the real world. For example, in the recently released slasher horror film, Clown in a Cornfield, the protagonist and a friend run through a cornfield (surprise!) to get away from the villain when suddenly said villain (a clown, natch) guts the friend dramatically with a chain saw. This is not the kind of thing that could happen to you and not involve years of therapy to work through. In War of the Worlds, the world and its inhabitants seem vaguely interested in the meteors bombarding earth, but not to the degree of frantic that I think would absolutely be warranted. The characters, like us, seems to recognize that this is just a step in the pathway of getting the story going.
So, not long after, aliens and/or their proxies begin emerging from the fallen meteors, and sure, people react to this with concern. Just not the level of OHMYGODTHEWORLDISENDING! concern that I would expect. But I must cut the film’s characters some slack for their lack of emotion, as the CGI aliens of this movie look notably worse and less scary than the practical effects used in the original 1953 version.
1s-and-0s – A Nutritious Alien Breakfast
One of the big a-ha moments of this movie is when we learn that the aliens have come to eat our computer data. Of course our protagonist does some kind of triangulation at the macro map level that could just as easily pinpoint SeaWorld as the alien’s destination, but no, of course, it must be the critical government data centers… ironically, the catalyst for our hacker’s job.
We’re then treated to sequences of data centers worldwide being depleted of data with a handy-dandy thermometer-style gauge that rapidly drains out. So convenient of someone in marketing to have built a custom dashboard to drive home the devastation of the alien invasion through the use of dynamic infographics.
But what really, really burns me, and where my actual suspension of disbelief doesn’t just break down, it goes through a full-on Chevy Chase style prat fall into the head of a tympani, is when the aliens have eaten – past tense, eaten – our data, and yet our amazing hacker Ice Cube can still: use his computer, get online, have Zoom calls with his superiors, track his pregnant daughter, fly drones, and more.
This movie even goes to the effort of showing you American military ships rolled over on their side the moment data access is lost, but doesn’t ever interrupt Ice Cube’s Wifi.
My Wayward Son, and the Lost Boys of Code
The second big reveal of the film – dun dun DAH! – is that Will Radford’s own son, Dave, is actually the arch nemesis hacker, Disruptor. “Dad, you never notice shit!” is about the most believable line in the entire movie. But of course, we really have to buy into Ice Cube’s bone fides in order to follow on that his son, too, would be a major computer whiz. Alas… Soon after the reveal, Will is fired, locked out of DHS, and summarily removed from all systems, but somehow maintains a connection to his son online, who immediately grants him even better access to government systems. This all takes place in, I believe, about 90 seconds in the movie.
Disruptor Dave then gathers Ol’ Dad and some friends that might as well be Peter Pan’s Lost Boys, and they decide to team up to build a virus that will take down the aliens. And I mean team in the true sense, where each one has a portion of the job to do that sounds like the screenwriter Googled “technobabble” to figure out what task to assign each person. “I’ll do encryption, you handle network packet transfer! Hurry!”
But I get it. The movie has to appeal to a mass audience, and you can’t be too real about computer programming simply because most of the time it’s boring as hell. Even if the end product of computer programming is those very same screens that we all live inside.
So maybe there is a good movie out there, somewhere, that can handle an entire plot through one person’s computer monitor. But maybe it wasn’t the best idea to try that on the film where the bad guys literally devour the systems that power our digital world.
At least I would have had a good laugh if Ice Cube was able to dispatch the alien horde with an enthusiastic, “Bye, Felicia!”
War of the Worlds (2025)
Screenplay by Kenneth A. Golde and Marc Hyman
Directed by Rich Lee
My rating: