It’s been around a year and a half since Pepsi had the unfortunate plug in Madame Web, making Pepsi supporters redder in the face than the red in the can of its rival soda company.
There were scarce a number of product placement that were unfortunate in recent cinematic history, but at least Pepsi was not in the shameless promotion. What Amazon has going for it in the newest version of War of the Worlds is so wanton I legit thought of spending some time apart with my Prime Benefits relationship.
The notoriety of this movie has been known for sometime now, so you most likely have heard tell of its suckage (it’s RT score as of now is at 3% with critics, and 21% with audience members). This is one of those movies that manages to exceed your expectations of how atrocious a movie can be. I can see why some people may consider it in the camp of “so bad, its good”, but it only reached the comma part of that phrase for me.
I can see the appeal of wanting to take the classic H.G. Wells novel and make it in a modern setting (Spielberg did this with Tom Cruise twenty years ago, and while I was not the biggest fan of that one, this current movie makes me want to owe Spielberg a big apology). This version focuses on Will Radford (Ice Cube, who I still think can be an effective screen presence when given the right material), an expert at the Department of Homeland Security. He is too good at his job, as he is clearly trying to use work for two things: get past the death of his wife (due to a unnamed disease) and to be an over protective dad.
We get a sense of this when he calls his pregnant daughter Faith (Iman Benson), a med researcher of some kind. He is hacking into cameras at a local bakery of some kind she is buying a muffin. “The hard boiled egg is right there!”, he screams. She tries to defend her choice, but he knows she is lying, because he has access to the camera in her fridge (not sure why a fridge needs a camera, but that is just me).Then there is his son Dave (Henry Hunter Hall), who Will is (surprise!) not happy with as far as life choices go (Dave makes money by playing video games).
I should stop and mention that the movie (I typed “film” and deleted it in respect to the cinematic medium) is told in a “found footage” sort of way, only it is all on screens for computers and phones. Again, I see the appeal of wanting to tell the story in this format, but director Rich Lee (a first time director outside of some music videos) is in way over his head here. It is all so quickly put together we think there isn’t enough time to point out the countless errors.I knew going in the CGI would not be any good, and I was correct. That was just for the alien monsters, not for the news and weather reports.
Remember when I mentioned how blatant the product placement is for Amazon in this? Well, I forgot to mention Faith’s boyfriend (as well as the father of her soon to be baby), who is an Amazon Driver (no surprise that Will is not a fan of him). His name is (sigh) Mark (okay, I pulled that band aid off). There is a scene where Faith is succumbing to an injury to her leg, and needs to keep pressure on the wound or else she will die. Mark arrives, and manages to save the day…by applied Amazon packing tape. I’ll let you take a break to absorb what I just said. This was the same solution used in 2022’s holiday bloody romp Violent Night by Santa (portrayed by David Harbour). That was a movie knowing it was having fun, and not taking itself that seriously.
If that was not bad enough (this movie is so rancid that I don’t mind spoiling it), it ends with Mark saving the day by delivering a USB drive to Will via Amazon air drop drone something or other (they have to bribe a homeless man with a 1000 dollar amazon card to flip the drone when it lands on its back in turtle mode). Even AI would not want to write that up.
Parents, there is some swearing (one F bomb) and some violence. That is it.
Not too long after seeing the movie, I learned the official tagline is “It’s worse than you think.” At least they are genuine.
Overall:
Zero Stars
Nothing else to say 