Film: War of the Worlds
Cast: Ice Cube, Eva Longoria, Clark Gregg, Iman Benson, Henry Hunter Hall, Devon Bostick, Andrea Savage, Nicole Pulliam
Director: Rich Lee
Rating: 1.5/5
Runtime: 91 min.

This is a film that seems to have been made through AI. There doesn’t appear to be much human involvement in its making. Most of the visuals involve computer imagery and Zoom culls. It’s also quite silly and dumb in the way that it plays out.

The script by Kenneth A. Golde & Marc Hyman, centers around DHS officer Will Radford (Ice Cube), an analyst who mans a government surveillance program. It’s another matter that he mostly uses the ‘eye-in-the-sky’ tech to spy on his kids, troublemaker Dave (Henry Hunter Hall), and pregnant daughter Faith (Iman Benson). Eva Longoria is Sandra Salas, the NASA expert who gives inputs from the ground. Clark Gregg plays the Director of the Department of Homeland Security, and Andrea Savage takes on the garb of an FBI agent.

After much haranguing with his kids over his overprotective widower Dad persona, the narrative gets kicking with what experts observe as a meteor shower that sprays all over the globe. Fireballs streak across the sky, smashing all in its path, causing chaos everywhere. People get wiped out by the unprecedented meteor shower. Later we get to know, much like in the H.G. Wells classic, that these are alien vessels crashing onto Earth. All that’s happening is seen through Will’s computer screen. So the imagery doesn’t excite or cause any fear or tension.