War of the Worlds (2025 film)
| War of the Worlds | |
|---|---|
 Release poster | |
| Directed by | Rich Lee |
| Screenplay by | |
| Story by | Kenneth A. Golde |
| Based on | War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells |
| Produced by |
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| Starring | |
| Cinematography | Christopher Probst |
| Edited by |
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| Music by | Jon Natchez |
Production companies |
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| Distributed by | Universal Pictures |
Release date |
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Running time | 89 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
War of the Worlds is a 2025 American screenlife science fiction thriller film based on H. G. Wells's 1898 novel The War of the Worlds. The film was directed by Rich Lee with a screenplay by Kenneth A. Golde and Marc Hyman from a story by Golde. It stars Ice Cube, Eva Longoria, Clark Gregg, Andrea Savage, Henry Hunter Hall, Iman Benson, Devon Bostick, and Michael O'Neill.
War of the Worlds was released by Universal Pictures on Amazon Prime Video on July 30, 2025. The film was panned by critics, with criticism directed at Ice Cube's performance and the film's product placement.[1]
Plot
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officer Will Radford works for a government surveillance program that can monitor every person on Earth. His relationship with his pregnant daughter Faith and son Dave is strained due to his use of the program to constantly monitor them. While helping FBI agents try to find a mysterious hacker, known as "Disruptor", meteors begin striking all over the planet. Large machines emerge from these and start attacking humans, which Will, and his friend Sandra from NASA, ascertain to be an alien invasion. Will helps Dave and Faith evade the machines before being called to a meeting with DHS Director Donald Briggs, U.S. Secretary of Defense Walter Crystal, and the president.
The president authorizes a military response, which other governments soon follow. Despite initial success, Will notices the machines concentrate around data centers worldwide. The larger machines then disperse smaller insectoid creatures to harvest the data inside these buildings. This allows the aliens to strengthen their machines and continue to defeat human forces. To his dismay, Will also discovers that Disruptor is Dave. Dave sends him a link to classified information about a surveillance operation known as "Goliath". Reading these files, Will discovers that alien ships had previously arrived on Earth, and that the government knew they fed on data. Despite warnings that activating Goliath could alert the aliens, Briggs chose to activate it anyway. Will confronts Briggs, who claims his actions were necessary to keep people safe. Briggs then locks Will out of the DHS system.
With the help of Dave and his team of hackers, Will re-enters the system, and they plant a virus to disable the aliens' machines. Though it works at first, the aliens shake off the virus and continue fighting. They are also able to locate and kill most of the hackers, except Dave. The military plans to bomb the DHS headquarters (under which Goliath is kept), to ensure the aliens cannot access the system. Using a variation of Faith's cancer-destroying "Cannibal" code concealed in a flash drive delivered by her boyfriend, Amazon delivery driver Mark, Will breaks into the bunker in time and shuts down Goliath, simultaneously causing the aliens to shut down. With Goliath down, the military calls off the bombing.
Some time later, Will and Dave are celebrated as heroes. Briggs' crimes are exposed and he is arrested, and Faith is credited with using her DNA studies to ensure the aliens' defeat. Crystal gives Will an offer to lead a new surveillance program that will not interfere with people's privacy, but he declines, saying, "Now, I'm watching you." He then leaves to go to Faith's baby shower.
Cast
- Ice Cube as William "Will" Radford, a surveillance and threat assessment expert at the Department of Homeland Security
- Eva Longoria as Dr. Sandra Salas, Will's friend who works at NASA
- Clark Gregg as Donald Briggs, Director of the Department of Homeland Security
- Iman Benson as Faith Radford, Will's daughter, a biomedical researcher who is pregnant
- Henry Hunter Hall as Dave Radford, Will's son, a video gamer and hacker known as Disruptor
- Devon Bostick as Mark Goodman, Faith's boyfriend, Amazon delivery driver
- Michael O'Neill as Walter Crystal, United States Secretary of Defense
- Andrea Savage as Sheila Jeffries, FBI Agent
- Jim Meskimen as the President of the United States
Production
In September 2020, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, Ice Cube joined in the lead role in an untitled film produced by Timur Bekmambetov, which would be directed by Rich Lee with a screenplay by Kenneth A. Golde for Universal Pictures.[2] Universal was intrigued by the project by Bekmambetov's use of screenlife technology, described as having "the look of commercial event film but at the budget of a contained thriller", which also allowed the actors and crew members to work in individual workspaces, which was seen as useful regarding the pandemic's impact on the film industry.[2] In October, Eva Longoria joined the cast, and Universal greenlit the film and "fast tracked it by having it go into production" that month.[3] By April 2024, it was revealed to be an adaptation of the 1898 novel The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells.[4]
In July 2025, Clark Gregg, Andrea Savage, Henry Hunter Hall, Iman Benson, Devon Bostick, and Michael O'Neill were revealed to have been part of the project.[5] The film was produced using a screenlife technique that places audiences inside the action through the lens of phones, computers, and tablets. Bekmambetov added: "If aliens invaded today, how would we experience it? Most likely, we'd be watching it on our phones, in that way, it's kind of a modern spin on Orson Welles' War of the Worlds. Back then, he used radio, the most popular technology of the time, to make people believe the invasion was real. Today, that medium is the screen of our devices."[5] Jon Natchez composed the film's score.[6]
Release
War of the Worlds was released by Universal Pictures on Amazon Prime Video on July 30, 2025.[5]
Reception
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 3% of 40 critics' reviews are positive. The website's consensus reads: "Stranding Ice Cube in an inept screensaver with wall-to-wall product placement, War of the Worlds will make audiences consider giving peace a chance instead."[7] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 6 out of 100, based on seven critics, indicating "overwhelming dislike".[8]
The product placement from Amazon was panned by viewers and critics.[1] The film's climax, where an Amazon employee uses a Prime Air drone, was heavily criticized.[9][10][11] Brian Tallerico of RogerEbert.com gave it zero out of four stars and considered the constant promotion of Amazon "truly morally icky". At the end of the review, he recommended watching Union instead.[10]
Peter Debruge of Variety considered the film to be a poor adaptation of The War of the Worlds, criticizing Ice Cube's performance.[9] Kevin Nguyen of The Verge described the movie as "so bad it's good".[12]
NBC called it one of the worst films of 2025.[1] However, Entertainment Weekly reviewer Jordan Hoffman gave it a positive review saying "It's certainly stupid, but it's also a great deal of fun."[13]
References
- ^ a b c Mullen, Austin (August 13, 2025). "Is 'War of the Worlds' the worst movie of 2025?". NBC News. Retrieved August 14, 2025.
- ^ a b Kroll, Justin (September 24, 2020). "Ice Cube To Star In Untitled Patrick Aiello/Timur Bekmambetov Sci-FI Pic For Universal". Deadline Hollywood. Archived from the original on February 16, 2021. Retrieved July 24, 2025.
- ^ Kroll, Justin (October 19, 2020). "Eva Longoria Joins Ice Cube In Untitled Patrick Aiello/ Timur Bekmambetov Sci-Fi Pic For Universal". Deadline Hollywood. Retrieved July 24, 2025.
- ^ "BULLETIN NO: 2829" (PDF). Classification and Rating Administration. April 10, 2024. Archived from the original (PDF) on April 10, 2024. Retrieved August 12, 2025.
- ^ a b c D'Alessandro, Anthony (July 24, 2025). "Ice Cube & Eva Longoria's 'War Of The Worlds' Reimagining Gets Prime Video Release Date; Watch The Trailer". Deadline Hollywood. Retrieved July 24, 2025.
- ^ "Jon Natchez Scoring Rich Lee's 'War of the Worlds' Reboot". Film Music Reporter. July 30, 2025. Retrieved August 12, 2025.
- ^ "War of the Worlds". Rotten Tomatoes. Fandango Media. Retrieved August 20, 2025.
- ^ "War of the Worlds". Metacritic. Fandom, Inc. Retrieved August 13, 2025.
- ^ a b Debruge, Peter (July 30, 2025). "'War of the Worlds' Review: Ice Cube Headlines a Disastrous Movie Retelling of H.G. Wells' Alien-Invasion Classic". Variety. Retrieved August 1, 2025.
- ^ a b Tallerico, Brian (August 11, 2025). "War of the Worlds". RogerEbert.com. Retrieved August 11, 2025.
- ^ Jones, CT (August 12, 2025). "Amazon's 'War of the Worlds' Movie Isn't So Bad It's Good. It's Just Very, Very Bad". Rolling Stone. Retrieved August 12, 2025.
- ^ Nguyen, Kevin (August 13, 2025). "The new War of the Worlds movie is even more terrible than you've heard but also hilarious". The Verge. Archived from the original on August 13, 2025. Retrieved August 13, 2025.
- ^ Hoffman, Jordan (August 7, 2025). "Is Ice Cube's 'War of the Worlds' on Amazon really as bad as everyone is saying?". EW.com. Retrieved August 14, 2025.