War Of The Worlds

Recently i was sitting down going through a list of how many great films came out 20 years ago in the year of 2005. When you think about it this was a very unique year for films with cinema releases such as Batman Begins, The Descent, Sin City, Brokeback Mountain, A History Of Violence, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, The Devil´s Rejects, Cinderella Man, Capote ( one of actor Philip Seymor Hoffman´s best acting performances ), Syriana, Flightplan, Saw II ( i really enjoy this sequel, a must see if you have not seen it ) and many more titles. What is so nice about going back in movie history is that you sometimes forget about certain titles that you have not seen for a long time and you might want to watch them again. That´s exactly what i did when i heard a new War Of The Worlds movie have come out on Amazon Prime and i thought about Steven Spielberg´s film version of War Of The Worlds released in 2005. I remember i saw this film in cinema back in the day, especially because i used to be a big fan of the 1988 sci fi horror TV series War Of The Worlds that used to run every week on Swedish TV channel Kanal 5. The 2005 film is based on the 1898 cult classic science fiction novel War Of The Worlds by author H.G. Wells, a book i have not read yet but i know i should at some point. The film tells the story of hard working single father Ray Ferrier ( Tom Cruise ) who is getting ready to have his children Robbie ( Justin Chatwin ) and daughter Rachel ( Dakota Fanning ) staying at his house. He have a good relationship with his daughter Rachel but things are clearly not good between Ray and Robbie as they struggle to get along. While waking up after sleeping to prepare for another night shift, Ray finds out from Elizabeth that Robbie took his car and drove off. Enourmous thunderstorms begin to happen outside across the streets as Robbie return safe, but the weather lightning becomes worse. Turns out this is aliens travelling underneath the ground to rise up in enormous machines, ready to wipe out humanity. Of all the War Of The Worlds versions i have seen i think director Steven Spielberg´s version is the best one so far. The film is well made, great acting performances and most of all great CGI effects. We have had other versions of War Of The Worlds from 2005 come out over the years, i did enjoy the BBC TV mini series The War Of The Worlds from 2019 ( i can recommend this one ). So here we are with a new version of War Of The Worlds this time with Ice Cube taking on this classic story withing the sci fi genre. Is this just as good as previous versions or is this the worst film adapation so far based on H.G. Wells classic book?

Threat analyst William Radford ( Ice Cube ) is one of the best at making sure America is safe, he can locate any threat withing the digital world and trace criminal activities. When he is informed that something strange is happening worldwide with drastic weather changes, he begin to see enourmous machines appearing across the world as if this is an alien life form attacking human beings. William does everything in his power to make sure his children Faith Radford ( Iman Benson ) and David Radford ( Henry Hunter Hall ) is in safety. What do these visitors want? Why are they attacking human civilization?

I know this film have had a lot of negative reviews ever since War Of The Worlds came out on Amazon Prime. So i decided not to look at all the reviews and just go into this film with an open mind instead. Who knows, i might disagree with what most of the films critics are saying regarding this film. After seeing this new updated version of H.G. Wells story there are some things we need to discuss. Let me start with the positive and i do think legendary hip hop artist, actor Ice Cube as the lead character William Radford have a couple of charming dialogue scenes. Even though we basically see him sitting infront of a computer in the whole film he does have that Ice Cube vibe that we are familiar with. The soundtrack of this film does include some good stuff, especially the song Keep Your Head Up with jazz, blues and funk artist Wolfgang Valbrun. Ok, so that was the positive and now we have to talk about the negative as well. I do like that director Rich Lee tried to make a different story of War Of The Worlds with a more modern version. The problem is that it doesn´t really work since he did not make the story match well with the bad CGI effects. If he could have spent more time fixing the flaws that the CGI effects have in this film ( and trust me there are plenty of bad CGI scenes ), this could have been an interesting update on this classic story. Another detail i feel become pretty clear is that the other actors who is seen on their mobile phones, trying to act into their characters feel very forgettable. Once you have seen this film i bet there isn´t one single character you will remember other than Ice Cube´s character William. The editing of this film is all over the place with a lot of references to the company Amazon, as if they want to promote the company heavily into this film. This is supposed to be a sci fi action film, not a commercial for Amazon services. We have to talk about the action scenes as well and as you may now by now, i am a huge fan of action films in general. I tried to find at least one action scene that is pretty cool and i had problems even remembering one specific scene that at least looks ok. Director Rich Lee is perhaps mostly known for being a music video director and i do remember his music video for the band Evanescence and the single Good Enough. Nice song, and the video matches the lyrics. Considering that director Rich Lee worked with visual effects on the 2002 sci fi action classic Minority Report with legendary director Steven Spielberg you would think he would be a good pick for making an updated version of War Of The Worlds. He clearly wasn´t the best choice, he doesn´t seem to have passion for this project because this is a very forgettable film. Ice Cube saves this film from falling completely but i can not recommend this film for Amazon Prime watchers. Watch the 2005 version again instead and at least you will have a good time.

Rating: DD