War of the Worlds is a modern reimaging of H. G. Wells’s original story from the 1800s, a story retold countless times over the years.
Tom Cruise starred in one 20 years ago with Dakota Fanning. It was fine. Perfect movie for a Sunday afternoon in bed after a long ass Saturday night in the streets. I reckon that’s true of 99% of Cruise’s work. The hangover god.
But this time, the classic story is told via a guy alone in a room just looking at shit on his computer.
Ice Cube is our tour guide through this universe, shot completely through the lens of smartphones, CCTV footage and Zoom calls.
William Radford (Ice Cube) is a surveillance and threat assessment expert at the Department of Homeland Security—who spends most of his workday watching his (adult) children’s every move.
He starts the movie quickly changing tabs to new conversations and ring cameras and work group chats between his son and daughter—who are fed up with his overbearing and borderline medication-worthy obsession with watching them and his co-workers(?), I guess.
Eva Longoria plays Dr. Sandra Salas—Will’s friend at NASA. He has a friend at NASA.
Andrea Savage plays Sheila Jeffries an FBI Agent he knows, as well.
And Clark Gregg plays Donald Briggs, the Director of the Department of Homeland Security and Will’s boss.
In the midst of some extreme weather alerts from his NASA friend, Dr. Salas, Will must use his uncanny ability to access anyone’s location to help Agent Jeffries find a notorious hacker named “The Disruptor”—who is live-streaming a conspiracy theory about the government’s “Goliath” program, designed to spy on Americans.
Suddenly, meteor showers crash to the Earth as Will Radford desperately scrambles between making sure his adult children are safe and, ya know, making sure the United States of America is safe—his job.
Dr. Salas approaches one of those meteors, her arm above her head so she can FaceTime Will, of course, and we can watch what’s happening through his desktop screen—to find machine-based aliens that look like they were made for an original 1994 PlayStation game that never came out.
After helping the president devise a military strategy against this impending alien invasion, Will Radford realizes the aliens don’t care about nuclear power plants or government buildings.
No, these aliens are here to collect our data—sneaking off to all of the world’s major data centers to consume all of our personal information—perhaps to sell us targeted ads for whatever erectile dysfunction technology they’ve been cooking up on their home planet.
Will Radford and his son—who ends up being The Disruptor on some real “like father, like son” shit—team up to feed the aliens a virus.
A team-up only made possible by the local Amazon delivery drone that drops off a new thumb drive to the US’s Homeland Security office.
Thank you, Amazon.
Where would we be without your tentacles in all of our lives? Well, if we learn anything from this movie, without Amazon, we’d be safe from the aliens coming to devour the data Amazon has collected from everyone.
Oh, nevertheless, Amazon giveths and takeths away-ths.
Will Radford—the helicopter dad who has an unhealthy fear of his children dying that causes him to constantly spy on them, even going as far as just straight up hacking into his daughter’s phone and reading all her texts about him—sees his biggest fears come to life as he must protect his offspring via being a nosy bitch.
His biggest character flaw saves the day.
No lessons were learned.
Don’t worry about government surveillance, guys.
Even though the government’s “Goliahth” program was real—a powerful satellite system meant to be so advanced at spying that it could predict crime before it happened—thankfully, there was one, singular good government employee to save us from the alien invasion caused by the government’s spying satellites.
If you want to watch a movie where the main character actually does stuff as opposed to just reading his script taped to the blank screen in front of him—you’re in the wrong place.
If you want that main character to learn that his children are old enough and capable of living their own lives without their father literally watching them 24/7—don’t watch this movie where aliens come and the only way to save his children is by literally watching them 24/7
If you want to watch a movie where tech companies are questioned for their massive data centers filled will all of our inner thoughts and wishes—often built at the detriment of the local communities who are forced to leave or consume dirt water—or a movie that questions the American government’s constant stalking of its citizens through claims of “protection” against unidentified, faux-threats—then this movie won’t sratach either itch for you.
If you want to see a movie with unique, sharply designed aliens, you won’t find them in War of the Worlds. These aliens resemble Microsoft clip art crudely pasted onto the background of war stock footage.
If you want to watch a hilarious movie where the rapper who made No Vaseline sits in an empty room pretending to watch aliens obliterate the planet when it’s very clear he’s in his home office, thinking about what island he wants to vacation once that Amazon check hits his bank account, then stop what you’re doing at watch War of the Worlds.
Just look at this master class he puts on throughout the film:
Compilation of Ice Cubes Oscar worthy performance in War of the Worlds. pic.twitter.com/eaTPrfiHKO
— 𖦹Hav𖦹 (@thebeldamm) August 5, 2025
Art.
In an era where I have no less than 3 screens in my face at all times, sometimes I need a movie like War of the Worlds, a movie so different that it requires my full attention.
I was sucked in by this random security agent multitasking between urgent FaceTimes with an FBI agent—who elected to FaceTime him through a potential arrest of a government-wide threat and stalking his children.
I couldn’t wait to see those aliens and I wasn’t disappointed.
Every director has their vision of what aliens look like today.
They’re almost all disappointing.
Not in War of the Worlds.
No, these aliens looked like lazy Chat GPT AI designs.
As if they were a last-second addition. Like the director was like “oh shit, we’re out of money and we forgot to make the fucking aliens. Uh, quick, ask Grok”.
Not every movie can be Goodfellas or Oppenheimer. But I’d rather a movie be laughably made than blah or bland or boring. I could watch Ice Cube stare into a camera and yell “Oh DANG” all day.
You know what, I gotta go watch this movie again. Movie of the Year candidate for sure.
Life is hard and it sucks and it’s confusing and it hurts. Sometimes, it’s okay to just sit down and watch absolute nonsense before you go to bed and wake up for a brand new day of pain and misery and sorrow.
War of the Worlds is a break from the hellscape we know as planet Earth. Get some popcorn, a weed vape and watch Andrea Savage get blown up by an alien.
Thanks for reading.
Let me know your opinions of War of the Worlds, leave a comment below. Respond on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram. Or shoot me an email at Deadseriousmailbag@gmail.com. Let’s chat, bay-beeeee.
