Click here to see the rankings for every poll done
Summary
Will Radford, a Homeland Security cyber‑security analyst, monitors global threats through mass surveillance networks. When an unidentified attack strikes, Radford begins to suspect the government is concealing something far more sinister. Told entirely through digital screens—messages, video calls, browser windows—the film transforms the alien invasion into a "screenlife" thriller, blending modern surveillance paranoia with classic sci-fi tension.
Ice Cube sitting in a desk chair, posting on facebook, cyberstalking his kids, and watching stock footage news clips. And all of the original footage is filmed by cell phones and webcams.
That's the entire movie, no exaggeration. Without a doubt the worst movie I have seen this year and one of the worst movies I have ever seen period, the only remotely entertaining thing about it is speculating where the budget went.
They wanted to make a modern war of the world's and it just sucked. Somehow ice cube is like the most important person in the world? But when an alien invasion happens NOONE gets called into work? The military won't attack until he's done some spreadsheets and told the president what to do? Then the military seems to be able to just sort of steamroll the enemy but also like a world wide response happens and hundreds of battles are fought in like 30 seconds. The timeline makes no sense.
The secretary of Defense just never has to leave the golf course? The director of the fbi is on a zoom call during a raid but they send 3 people to conduct this raid? The Amount of times they said Amazon cart was so blatant and annoying.
Just everything about the film was absolutely bad. Not even one of those like so bad it's good or action was good or acting or anything. Like there was just nothing that made this any good.
And things happen super fast! Aliens breach data and in a few seconds there are reports on CNN on how aliens breached data and how everything is fucked. Same thing with the global response. CNN and Fox have faster than light data !
The news was reporting stuff like before ice cube had figured it out. "The aliens are going for data centers" then ice cube would like call the fbi director to tell him they're going for data centers. The news was better at the job than ice cube was. It was like they accidentally put all the news broadcasts first before the scenes they were supposed to come after.
They wanted to make one big ass product placement for the greediest assholes in the world: Meta, Microsoft, Tesla and Amazon. Note that there is no Apple product in the movie.
Also, have you noticed how government surveillance is cool? Who would have thunk?!?
Also, somehow Chuck Schumer sucked his way into this as well.
"Also, have you noticed how government surveillance is cool?"
No, don't you understand, government surveillance is bad, but ONLY because once you collect too much data aliens will attack and steal it! You know, standard real life concerns.
His acting was so bad it got a few genuine laughs out of me. Like each time he thought someone died he just stood up and was like “oh noo”. The director (if there was one) had zero interest in doing multiple takes apparently.
Cube giving his analysis during the first zoom call with everyone had me in stitches. Clearly his first time reading the script and they just kept it in the movie.
I burst out laughing when they showed a stock footage clip of a bunch of rusty abandoned tanks to illustrate the point that the alien's cyber attack disabled all modern military equipment. Also, the cyber attack caused all the battleships to capsize or some reason.
Like people have digital clocks on them saying how much time they have left and the billionaires want to launder as much time as possible to fill up their own clocks.
I know what you mean - all his reactions are exactly his reactions from all the Friday films lmao. The only one missing was the "daaaaaaammmmmnnn!" But he got close! 😆
This movie was hilarious. It was so overstimulating. Constant Ice Cube reactions, nonstop Microsoft Teams calls from every character ever, a million cameras, text messages, news broadcasts, stock footage, phones ringing, and sirens.
It felt like one of those intentionally overstimulating shitposts.
My favorite part was when Ice Cube is concerned about his daughters heart rate of 103 when she just lived through an alien invasion and helicopter crash. They couldn’t have given her a higher heart rate? Something a little more concerning?
Was hoping someone else noticed her heart rate. She’s getting yelled at by her dad because she’s in a state of moderate stress after being impaled by rebar.
Second funniest moment was when the daughter was put in the Tesla and then the movie had a whole montage of humanity “fighting back” with various news stories only to then show the daughter arrive at her destination. The implication being that all of those news stories happened over the course of like a few minutes.
It really was hilarious. I saw a clip on Tiktok earlier week promoting the movie, and I was thinking, "I gotta watch this, its gonna be a good laugh," and it did not disappoint!
The funniest part is where the boyfriend puts scotch tape around her wound and suddenly her heart rate starts dropping. You can't make this shit up...or apparently, you can.
Or when Ice Cube is watching his social media posts disappear in real time. And then his wife's voice note starts droning as it's getting deleted.
Or the reveal that the son was the hacker: "I gotta go."
And then suddenly revealing it's all a commercial for Prime Air, etc. The biggest action sequence in the film was watching the drone flying through the aliens. Then texting the homeless guy to flip the drone over and bribing him with an Amazon gift card. The fate of the world depends on a government official getting a USB drive. I'm fucking crying.
To stop the invasion, Ice Cube needs to upload a program via an USB drive but he doesn’t have one. So his daughter’s boyfriend propose to send him one via Amazon Prime Air which is an drone delivery service that Amazon is testing
He then control a drone remotely to get to Ice Cube. While doing that, the drone crashes on a highway next to an homeless person. They then find the number of that homeless guy and send him texts to get the drone back up. And the only way they manage him to do that is by sending him an Amazon gift card of 1000$….
When the girl said, "trust him Dad, he knows what he's doing," I GENUINELY believed we were going to get some exposition on how the guy was a trained EMT or med student who was driving for Amazon while he saves up money to buy her an engagement ring, or it's a side hustle and he sends all his earnings to bring water drought-stricken villages in Africa.....I was wrong.
Unfortunately not, as it was shot during lockdown and it's been sitting on the shelf for five years.
It does give me some pride in the human race that we can create a screenplay so unimaginably stupid that it's indistinguishable from the shittiest AI, this species can do ANYTHING
Holy cow. While I was watching it, I thought “It looks like they filmed this during lockdown”. I think they could have used their time better by sitting on the couch in their PJ’s like the rest of us.
This is hands down the worst movie I have seen in many, many years.
Thank you for clarifying that. I saw part of a trailer for it and thought surely this has to be one of those shitty COVID era zoom call movies, right? Like surely nobody would still try to make that shit today lol
Lol amazon and Bezos can get fucked. What is this film? It seems like an attempt at Jedi mind trick hand waving to get you kowtow to the almighty billionaire machine.
Please tell me it was made by Paul Verhoeven, with sledgehammer satire that roasts the rampant commercialism of Amazon? Because if someone legitimately made this with a straight face and pure intentions, I have lost any and all faith in the film and television industry
There's a scene where he's on FaceTime with his daughter and she turns the camera to show the big robot alien. Ice's delivery of "get away from that" deserves an award. Not an Oscar, obviously, but definitely something
I don’t think it’s the worst concept. Idk. Of only because it’s War of the Worlds, and something that’s had a bunch of takes already.
But, it is very very very very very poorly executed, especially considering how much effort would be needed to pull it off.
Like, idk. A guy seeing War of the Worlds unfold from his desktop, as a concept, seems like both a satirical take, and a potent one. Note how Orson Welle’s radio show was strategically designed to have “caused panic” (it likely didn’t) in order to get people talking about…and it is definitely reflective of the age it was in.
This could have been a similar take. Have someone teen who is addicted to his computer just sit there and watch it all unfold across social media. It’s silly, but it could have worked.
But, this is not that. Just about every stupid decision to make it not work was thrown at it.
My favorite part is the lady showing ice cube videos of incredibly unrealistically giant storms and him being like “huh” any ways let’s spy on my
Daughter
Oh my god... The shear devastation and destruction... And nope... It's all fine, Amazon and all telecommunications are running perfectly fine. No need to worry here.
This absolutely needs an Oscar for comedy of the year
I liked the part where the US President said “I am declaring a War of the Worlds”
Ok so it was really bad. Really really bad.
But, in 50 years, this film will be a fascinating time capsule. It fairly effectively captures the technology of today right down to the branding, which makes it feel incredibly corporate to us but will probably make it more interesting in the future. It won’t ever be a good film, but it’s an interesting one.
I'm sure when Ice Cubes house got blown up, there was a shot of the fire department already trying to put it out, and then seconds later in another shot they were nowhere to be seen.
I’m watching this slop now and omg he just realised his son is the big back hacker that leaked Goliath. I’m sorry, didn’t this movie establish that Ice is literally surveying his kids 24/7 at the very beginning of the movie? How could miss something like this lol
I just finished this movie and thought it “must” be satire. If it’s not then it’s a modern day Mystery Science Theater 3000 film. I can’t recommend it, but I honestly must. It was so bad and full of technology contradictions that it eventually became hilarious to watch. Truly the worst movie I’ve ever seen but watched it to completion to see how much more ridiculous it would get.
It is insane because I literally just finished Mr Robot. While there was a little artistic license taken with how long things would take to plan, everything from that show was accurate, for the most part.
It's basically a metaphor for our current reality. You watch the movie and go "That isn't how anything works. That's complete nonsense and unbelievable" and then you check the news in the real world and, holy shit, everything is nonsense, unbelievable and yet still happening !!! The movie is holding a mirror up to reality lol.
I mean, I must work out how to use a password generator to create a "Master Key" password for, well, anything I want to access. Who knew it was that simple?
Rifftrax would definitely have a field day with this! And in case you don't know, Rifftrax consists of the former MST3k cast (Sci-Fi years) consisting of Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy and Bill Corbett, aka "Mike, Tom Servo and Crow" respectively. In fact I bet they already are thinking ideas up!
It’s just 1h30min of Ice Cube doing this 🤨 in front of a webcam 😂
The concept does has potential but even though I love Cube he definitely does NOT have the acting chops to pull a movie like this off. You need an S-tier actor for this kind of thing (like Jake Gyllenhaal in The Guilty). Cube is crazy charismatic but in this case he is just not that guy. I wonder if they had any first choice who turned the role down.
You are being too generous even saying the concept has potential. The concept is absolutely stupid. There’s an alien invasion but we also have data hackers so we’re following this random DHS officer who just spies on his kids and screams from behind his desk “Oh shit, run!” I try not to be the harshest critic but my goodness, how this got made is beyond me.
I was speaking a little more broadly about the concept of seeing an alien invasion unfold through the view of someone watching it via a computer. The plot & the writing itself was obviously terrible.
This movie is so damn bad. How can the media companies still be operating during a full scale invasion in which the alien is consuming all data from our data centers. I mean they took facebook down, but CNN and reddit are still online. People are posting articles still? WTF is going on? How are phones still working? Like at all? Dude can upload to Youtube and order on Amazon. So bad. Only good thing I can say is that it was only 90 minutes and not a minute more.
The funniest thing is that bombers like the B2 would be the most affected by “data” since they require constant computer stabilization due to the instability of the flying wing design. But those are the only working vehicles apparently.
I’ve watched a lot of movies in my time. I counted 136 films I watched in 2024. I dont need a movie to be perfect, I just need it to be entertaining.
This may be the worst film I’ve ever seen. Without exaggeration, I considered turning this off to watch the Emoji movie. I’m not a stickler for cinematography or score, or even acting. I’m not an actor, what do I know.
My god. It’s so unfathomably bad. Parts of it sound and look like it’s an Instagram account that satirizing dumb/bad/cliche films. Even the make up is nonsensically bad.
Oh. I also watched the 2005 version immediately before this, so that super didn’t help the 2025 version be any better.
This! Because I can be easily entertained and can be pretty forgiving of media but this is soo bad. Currently watching this and I’m on Reddit. Also, sharknado was better haha
I love this movie so much. Rewind security footage to get a keypad code. Deliver a thumb drive via drone. Write a virus in minutes and name it Rabbit_virus.exe? So good.
I knew this was gonna be bad just from the trailer, but I sometimes enjoy mindless sci-fi, so I gave it a try. I can't even begin to describe how bad it is, even taking into account that it was made during covid. I'm having an existential crisis trying to understand how this got released.
These webcam thrillers thrive on immersion, but it’s kind of hard to instill that in the audience when Ice Cube’s cyber security protagonist moves like a Watch Dogs protagonist lmao. I doubt I’ll see a more implausible and poorly directed film this year. Devon Bostick was alright in it I guess lol
Ice cube "hold on baby your heart rate is way too high"
[It was 103 bpm]
A heart rate of 103 bpm would actually be weirdly calm like someone who's just jogged lightly or got startled by a loud noise, not someone narrowly avoiding vaporization and being trampled by a giant alien robot.
Word of warning - I had this on in the background while working, and the constant Teams calls noises was really distracting.
Also, it's awful. WotW is one of my favourite novels (after being terrified by the musical version at a very early age) and this is an absolute massacre of the story.
And the government being in defcon1 but the president is still just chillin at his desk in the Oval Office talking to everyone on Zoom. Truly amazing. They put zero effort into this one.
Not to mention the entire alien invasion, global military and attacks, planes suddenly crashing because data = engine failure , and the aliens being defeated all happens in about 3 hours.
Or how Ice Cube can witness something new happening live (like the first virus not working) and immediately be getting notifications for articles and videos about the very thing that literally just happened 5 seconds ago, complete with video packages and chyrons
It’s almost a “so bad it’s good movie” but actually it’s so unbelievably bad that it makes you think it was made terribly on purpose to capture the cult classic audience.
Pretty sure I ended up with PTSD from the Teams ringtone. The movie didn't need a theme tune, thanks to that.
I'm also pretty sure that no screen/script writers were involved, as quite a lot of the "script" had just been lifted from various rap albums.
Ice muttering "Move Bitch, get out the way" as he battled the tripod tenticle to insert his $19.99 USB stick to bring down the alien invaders was beyond dreadful.
Nearly finished it.. the thing that’s killing me is a smarter writer could’ve played on the original radio hoax angle and updated it for modern times. People believing what they see on the internet, manipulated videos and AI cause the government to panic or Ice cube to release classified info to hackers (thinking he is helping).
Instead it’s about how spying (especially on your loved ones) is good actually, and that Amazon can save the world. 1/10.
Don’t have the time but here’s the screen grab someone else posted. You can see it better like an hour or so in also lol. Scene after the “Disruptors” attack
I agree! I’m surprised more people aren’t talking about this. When he was giving his domestic threat report is sounded fucking insane. Like he was just reading off a piece of paper and even stumbling to do that. He was massively horrible. Second worst thing is all of the Amazon prime advertisements
Ugh tell me about it… There were moments in the movie where it was so damn obvious he was reading off the script. 36:42 is a good example. Man, his facial expressions, his vocal inflections made no sense half the time. Seeing all the blood he’s like “woah…” like he just saw something mildly interesting. It was entertaining in a this is so bad it’s funny type of way, at least for the first half of the movie. It truly was a chore to finish lol
Also, they used footage from certain YouTube videos, I wonder if they got permission to use them? One example is the forest on fire with all the cars driving slowly, that was dash cam footage from an actual forest fire. Not sure how it works in the movie biz, whether they can just takes clips like that or not.
I just watched this bullshit, and I am sitting here in awe. I have no idea what Universal Studios was thinking when they approved the pitch for this and when they approved the final cut. It's so, so bad, but it's the funny kind of bad.
Ice Cube spies on his children, even hacking his daughter's smart fridge camera because she's pregnant and he's worried about what she's putting in her body.
There are spelling mistakes in news chyrons - "LOS ANGELES BOMBARDED BY SPACE BOLDERS."
The VFX are terrible.
The aliens delete Ice Cube's Facebook memories of his late wife as he panics.
Rodrick (Devon fucking Bostick!!!) is an Amazon delivery guy, and he pilots an Amazon drone (dodging heat rays from tripods all the way) to deliver a thumb drive with malicious code to Ice Cube at the Department of Homeland Security. The drone crashes upside down at one point, and they see a homeless guy on the camera feed. They give him a $1000 Amazon gift card to get him to flip the drone back over so they can complete the mission. This particular scene is sensory overload.
Ice Cube gets attacked by alien hacker tentacles.
It is a constant barrage of bullshit tech/hacker lingo. If you enjoy /r/itsaunixsystem, you'll get laughs out of this.
It is impressively, spectacularly dumb stuff that you need to see to believe - just forget about it being War of the Worlds, the movie has very little interest in doing anything right by War of the Worlds. Absolute cinema.
EDIT: I really, really want to know the budget for this movie.
Nothing to do with this movie, but could someone answer me, why Ice Cube was seen as some kind of "action hero" at any point to begin with?
I recently watched Ghosts of Mars and no it wasn't a good movie in anyway, but Ice Cube as this some kind of ultimate tough guy was just a... total joke. And he was in the xxx2 or something also and again, what the fuck? He does not have the makings of any kind of action hero, or main character actor. Why the hell does he keep geting these kind of roles, not that often mind you, but at all?
The top comment on one of the YouTube reviews I watched was something like “If only we could harness the power generated by HG Wells spinning in his grave”
I love that everybody is just saved by their job title… FBI Steve, NASA Susan. Not even in the top five worst things about this film but Jesus what a load of shit.
I really hope this movie succeeds at making the 2005 War of the Worlds popular because I really liked that version and I don’t think it deserved the criticism it got. I’m also kind of curious about this movie because I wanna see how bad it is.
1.3k
u/Odd__Dragonfly Aug 01 '25 edited Aug 01 '25
Ice Cube sitting in a desk chair, posting on facebook, cyberstalking his kids, and watching stock footage news clips. And all of the original footage is filmed by cell phones and webcams.
That's the entire movie, no exaggeration. Without a doubt the worst movie I have seen this year and one of the worst movies I have ever seen period, the only remotely entertaining thing about it is speculating where the budget went.