If you have a Fire Stick or regularly pop into Prime Video you’ll have spotted that there’s a decent looking film on; War of the Worlds. The movie has been reimagined for 2025. Well, really it’s been reimagined for 2020 and it’s awful.
What is War of the Worlds?
War of the Worlds is one of the most famous pieces of entertainment ever made. A radio adaption rose to fame in 1938 for all the wrong reasons. Based on the 1898 H.G. Wells novel of the same name, the 1938 radio adaption caused mass hysteria. Many tuned in and missed the intro, stating the show was just that, a show. Instead, many listeners believed the bulletin to be true. It took 30 minutes for someone to clarify to listeners who believed earth had been invaded.
Officially titled War of the Worlds: Revival, is the 2025 entry into the War of the Worlds series. It follows Will Radford (played by Ice Cube), a cynical cyber‑security analyst for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. His day job is monitoring digital threats, while spending most of that time monitoring his kids. That is until an alien invasion begins.
Production on this movie began in late 2020, right in the heart of the pandemic. The producer wanted to make a movie that was all based on screens, in the zeitgeist of the time.
I’ve seen this done once before with Searching, a film I quite liked.
But this new War of the World’s movie literally made my skin crawl. I had to turn it off.
Why is War of the Worlds: Revival So Bad?
War of the Worlds: Revival doesn’t just get one or two things wrong. It seems to get everything wrong.
First, is the ridiculous character played by Ice Cube. Frantically running through networks to find the coffee shop his daughter frequents to take control of cameras in fridges and see if she’s getting her daily intake of protein.
Utterly stupid, and not even a semi-decent ensemble of other actors, including Eva Longoria and Clark Gregg, can help this recover.
Next up is the format. It literally made me feel like I could have a panic attack. The “all on screens” format never had this impact on me before, but War of the Worlds: Revival felt claustrophobic. I could feel the Teams calls and cursor movements giving me anxiety. I really can’t explain it, but after just 23 minutes, I turned it off.
Conveniently, at about 22 minutes, we see the first of the aliens on screen. Terribly animated CGI aliens. That was the end of the road for me.
War of the Worlds: Revival might have been groundbreaking if it came out in the entertainment vacuum of 2021, but in 2025 it’s triggering something terrible in my brain. Something I hope I can save you all from.
War of the Worlds: Revival is streaming now on Amazon Prime Video, but don’t do it to yourself.
