War of the Worlds? More like War on My Eyes

Have you ever watched a movie so terrible you couldn’t look away?

War of the Worlds (2025) recently dropped on Amazon Prime, and the internet has gone crazy, forming one unified opinion, that this is “one of the worst movies ever made”. This viral disaster is based on the classic War of the Worlds, a story that has seen many versions over the decades. From Orson Welles’ novel, to the radio broadcast, then a technicolour adaption in 1953, then the 2005 remake… and now whatever this is in 2025.

The film has been out for almost two weeks now, has an astonishing Rotten Tomatoes score of three percent and somehow sits at #4 on Prime’s Australian charts. I guess this proves bad publicity still sells.

Screenshot from Amazon Prime

Naturally, I had to see what all the fuss was about. Five minutes into the movie I was already questioning: Was this movie even made by humans? Or am I witnessing the first AI-produced movie? Then ten minutes in, I understood exactly why it was trending and it wasn’t good. The acting, the screen quality, sometimes even the dialogue was so awful it became so fascinating. I couldn’t stop watching, telling myself “surely the whole thing isn’t like this?” Spoiler, it was.

The film utilises a “screenlife” format, where the movie is told entirely through computer screens, video calls and messages. This only made the film feel cheaper and poorly executed. And apparently I’m not alone in thinking this, judging by the raging online reviews.

As Roger Ebert discusses in his online review, Ice Cube is selected as the lead, Will Radford. Ebert mentions how the major drawback of the film is the obvious use of VFX. The background is so obviously not real, it looks like a Zoom background. You can even notice the “numerous shots of Cube’s glasses reflecting the green screen of whatever he’s looking at that was never filled in”. I personally believe Cube was purely employed to draw attention, some kind of celebrity endorsement ploy to make up for all the bad qualities in the film.

Following on from the VFX, don’t even get me started on the CGI… wow. It’s 2025. We can send people to the Moon, but apparently we can’t make a robotic alien look anything other than a PS2 cutscene. The result of this film is not only a letdown of the classic version, but an insult to the legacy of the story itself. I mean just look at the image below… it speaks for itself.

Screenshot from War of the Worlds (2025)

Maybe, maybe the low quality was an intentional artistic choice. But if it was, it still failed. Even the 2005 remake with all of its flaws felt more polished, immersive and respectful to the original literature.

In short, War of the Worlds (2025) is a bad movie – yet I still watched it until the end.