War of the Worlds

The first time I ever heard the song “The Devil Went Down to Georgia” was in the movie “Superstar.” The first time I ever heard the full song was in the Napster era (RIP), and we must have downloaded the edited version because at the end, in my version, he tells the Devil, “I told you once you son of a gun…”

Because of that, I always assumed that was the actual line in the song. Imagine my surprise when I heard for the first time that he actually said, “I told you once, you son of a bitch.

My mind was blown, and I did a double-take. It was very jarring. To this day, it surprises me every time he says "bitch" instead of "gun." With no easy segue from that, let's discuss...

War of the Worlds (2025)

So this movie... Ice Cube works for the DHS, and they're tracking this hacker who is threatening to expose what he calls the "Goliath Program," which is a new way for the government to completely spy on everybody; think Big Brother (the book, not the show. As an aside, Keanu carried that season, and he should have won.) While they're trying to track down "The Disruptor," meteors start hitting all over the earth at once. Inside those meteors are giant tripods armed with lasers and murder on their mind.

From there, The Cube is working through the surveillance program to monitor the latest developments, while working with a member of NASA and his family to stop the invasion and get to the bottom of why they're here and how the government is involved. Thankfully, we get a generous helping of Amazon product placement thrown in for good measure. When I say generous, I mean an obscene amount of product placement. For a movie that's told entirely through computer screens, security cameras and phones, they manage to squeeze in a whole lot of products and services.

War of the Worlds got absolutely horrible reviews. On Rotten Tomatoes, it has a 4% critic rating and a 20% audience rating. This is a stupid movie, like really stupid. At several moments, all you can do is laugh at what you're seeing on screen. It's funny because almost none of this is winking at the audience either. For the most part, this movie tries to be very serious, like it has something important to say about our addiction to technology and the dangers of government surveillance, but everything in this movie is so stupid. The Cube plays it straight; he really goes for it. In a better movie, it would be admirable, but with what we get, it's funny watching him be super serious while surrounded by such silliness.

I don't even know where to begin to paint you a picture of how stupid this movie is. Like, The Cube needs to upload something on the servers, but he doesn't have a thumb drive. Luckily, his daughter's beau is an Amazon delivery driver carrying his drone. The Cube then orders a thumb drive, and Mark delivers it via an Amazon drone. After flying through lasers, the drone gets knocked over. Luckily, it falls near a homeless man who has a phone. They then text him a 1,000-money Amazon gift card to flip it back over.

Still... I hate to say it... but I enjoyed this incredibly stupid movie. I think it happened around the point where The Cube is fighting off some of the tenctacly things, and he yells, I kid you not, "Move bitch, get out the way!" I mean, after everything you sat through, all you can do is laugh and just accept what you've gotten yourself into. It's terrible in the way Ed Wood movies were terrible. What you're seeing is bad, but it seems like whoever was making it tried their best and thought they were doing good.

Admittedly, there were some things I liked. I enjoyed the few minutes that humanity was fighting back; it was cool seeing planes and tanks taking down the tripods. It looked neat, and I appreciated it because of how OP those things were in the Tom Cruise War of the Worlds. Speaking of that movie, while I hated his kids, I have to give that movie credit; it has one of the coolest monster reveals ever. It builds suspense perfectly that your heart races so much you want them to hurry up because you NEED to see it. And when the aliens finally emerge from beneath the streets, it manages to be the perfect payoff to such a perfect setup. It's a one-two punch, and that movie nails it.

Outside of the stupidity of the movie, there were other things I didn't care for. For one, having major networks airing footage of people dying completely takes me out of a movie. No TV station, especially a major network, is going to show footage of the moment someone dies, and it wasn't live footage either. They're showing footage they've already looked at and decided to air it. Yeah, that's not happening. Also in real life, one of the producers on the film decided to be a scummy cheapskate and used actual footage of tragedies and superimposed the tripods in the footage. Some of them are actual scenes where people died. One of the editors didn't feel comfortable about it and disobeyed the producer and instead made the whole thing CGI. So, good on that person, and screw that producer.

The final line in this movie sums up how cheesy and stupid this movie is. The Cube gets offered a job where he'll still be surveilling people, but not collecting data. The Cube turns down the offer, saying he's done watching other people, "Now I'm watching you!"

It's not good in the slightest, but I enjoyed it. I'm struggling with how to rate it. It was stupid, but ultimately it entertained me and wasn't boring. So you know what, screw it! This falls into "so bad it's good" territory.

6.5 Dr. Chainsaws!