War of the Worlds

I watched War of the Worlds (2025) curious about its use of the screenlife format—that style of storytelling that unfolds entirely within screens and interfaces, like in Searching or Unfriended. The concept seemed promising: to bring H.G. Wells’s classic into a world dominated by surveillance and data. But the result leaves a bitter taste and a sense of inexplicable frustration.

Rich Lee, a music video director making his mainstream feature debut, appears unable to maintain rhythm or tension. The alien invasion, which should be terrifying, is mostly relegated to the background—visible only through poorly rendered and distant CGI. The stationary desktop camera drains the dramatic energy—the visuals lack movement, weight, and cinematic presence.

Ice Cube, playing Will Radford, inhabits a character that should explore moral tensions around privacy and power. Instead, he spends long minutes staring at Teams windows and text messages, showing almost no emotion. The format traps him, and his performance feels too restrained—his expression of boredom gets mistaken for concern, but it only underscores the artificiality of the film's construction.

Eva Longoria, as a NASA scientist, and Iman Benson, playing a pregnant scientist, bring potential for family drama, but feel like convenient inserts. The emotional core—especially with the hacker son (Henry Hunter Hall)—has moments of tension, but is weakened by stiff dialogue and a lack of real emotional depth.

The screenplay, written by Kenneth Golde and Marc Hyman, flirts with themes like state surveillance and corporate overreach—but falls into contradiction by glorifying Amazon itself. The narrative ends with Amazon drones saving the planet, a climax that feels more like a corporate ad than a dramatic resolution.

One moment that sums up the film's problems: in the midst of a global crisis, Will seems more worried about his daughter’s notifications than the devastation unfolding around him. It’s a moment that encapsulates the film’s upside-down priorities—symbolic, yet unintentionally comic.

To be fair, the idea of using the screenlife format to reflect modern isolation and technological dependence had real potential. With more nuance, it could’ve delivered inner tension and meaningful questions. Unfortunately, the film offers empty irreverence and lacks narrative drive.

At a brisk 89 minutes, the film moves quickly until it collapses into a narrative dead zone. The hyperactive editing becomes a character of its own, but never rescues what’s missing: suspense, vibrancy, empathy. The special effects, instead of impressing, highlight the limited budget and lack of true cinematic ambition.

In short, War of the Worlds (2025) is an adaptation torn between satire and self-promotion, between political critique and corporate infomercial. Its ambition to reflect modern paranoia about surveillance and data evaporates in the face of aesthetic and commercial misfires—leaving behind a clumsy, uninteresting, and hollow product.

War of the Worlds (2025 / United States)
Direction: Rich Lee
Screenplay: Kenneth A. Golde, Marc Hyman
Cast: Ice Cube, Eva Longoria, Iman Benson, Henry Hunter Hall, Clark Gregg, Andrea Savage, Devon Bostick, Michael O’Neill
Running Time: 89 min.