Editor’s Note: Ruthless Reviews has been an active website for nearly 25 years. During that time, we have published thousands of movie reviews, of which nearly 3,000 are still active today. Among these reviews are some genuinely dreadful movies like Duck, The Emoji Movie, Jump, A Meowy Christmas, The Beast of Yucca Flats, The Room, Santa With Muscles, Aquaman (Kevin’s favorite) and yes, Forrest Gump.
There are many more of these stinkers, and as Editor-In-Chief, I have often asked our writers to undertake awful tasks. We have many very talented writers here at Ruthless, that include Kevin, Devon Pack, Ezra Stead and others, but this 500-year flood of a horrible movie can only be done justice by our most tenured and savage critic.
In 2025, we all know the score. Red states, blue states, and a cultural divide so deep, talk of civil war no longer seems like a pipe dream. One side, armed to the teeth and lacking any rational check on the desire to use it, balanced by a loyal opposition so fundamentally stupid, they’ve gleefully embraced a death cult as proof they side with the angels. States with the highest rates of Medicaid enrollment embracing the most draconian cuts in the history of the program, staring eye to eye with a belief system that sees no irony in waving an Iranian flag at a so-called freedom march. Lines have been drawn, and compromise long ago left the building. Until now. Here, at last, an issue to unite us all. A kumbaya moment that very well may bring the bloodshed to an end.
I speak, of course, of War of the Worlds. Not the 1953 version, obviously, and not even the Spielberg update. No, we’re in Rich Lee territory. Heretofore a visual effects guru and occasional director of music videos, Mr. Lee has achieved what was previously dismissed as impossible: he’s made a movie so universally despised, he’s brought all points of view to the table in the spirit of peace and brotherhood. The screaming, at an end, at least temporarily. For now, we have a common enemy, and it’s a movie starring Ice Cube. Cinephiles had naively believed Battlefield Earth would be the last word on the subject. A few even planted their flag for The Room. The more esoteric among us still carried a torch for Ed Wood’s Plan 9. Even Roger Corman retains a few defenders. All have been swept aside. The worst movie in our lifetime has been released, and there’s not a goddamn thing we can do about it. Thank Christ.
First take a look at the numbers. An IMDB score of 2.7, when no movie in living memory had gone much below a 4.0. Rotten Tomatoes, usually a bastion of grade inflation and simpering sentimentality, couldn’t see fit to go above 4% favorability in an age where even the lousiest Christian movie reaches double figures. Social media, almost always on fire with division and rage bait, suddenly circled the wagons in nodding agreement. Not a single source can be found to defend this mess, and believe me, I’ve looked. Not even Armond White, professional contrarian and troll extraordinaire, wanted to stick a toe in and fake a little enthusiasm. Uniformity reigns at last. The moment is so packed with delight and meaning, I almost want to avoid the film altogether and bask in the afterglow. Almost. But duty calls, and I’ll do my best. Sure, I feel unclean and compromised by doing so, but remember, I’ve seen Fireproof. Twice.
That War of the Worlds exists at all is a miracle of the modern age, though it becomes less so as you examine the details of its birth. You see, this is an Amazon production. Amazon Prime, to be precise. And because Jeff Bezos, the closest we’ve ever come to a real-world Lex Luthor, is behind it, you know every waking second is going to be in service of his empire. It is, in fact, to that ubiquitous retail giant what 1988’s Mac and Me was to McDonald’s, only with less talent behind and in front of the camera. Then, you could swallow the endless allusions to Big Macs and Happy Meals because, well, the story was so riotously ridiculous. Fun, even. Now, it’s just dreary. An endless slog of wooden acting, with the only denouement a father’s appreciation of his children. At least Mac and Me made the creatures from outer space American citizens. That, I can stomach. This, a bridge too far. Way too fucking far.
Just like that E.T. rip-off had a character wearing the uniform of her corporate master throughout the movie, War of the Worlds doesn’t seem to think we’ll notice that Mark (Cube’s son-in-law to be) is either in an Amazon shirt, in his Amazon van, or endlessly talking about Amazon products. He even has Cube place an order in the midst of a global catastrophe! And yes, Prime Air, an Amazon delivery system using drones, not only plays a part in the story, it arguably saves humanity from itself, which is exactly what Bezos has been pushing all along. If drones can cut out wait times during fiery chaos, imagine what they can do when the fascistic tranquility arrives at last. We’ll have one more reason not to leave the house, and arguably the best reason of all. Why go anywhere when robots hold all the jobs?
If I had to choose the worst part of War of the Worlds, a task not unlike choosing which cancer I’d rather die from, I’d say it’s that because the entire story takes place on a computer screen, we’d never (and I mean never) have an opportunity to be away from Ice Cube. Ninety minutes of Jack Lemmon or Spencer Tracy? Fuck yes. Double it. But O’Shea Jackson? I guess, if he was on a medieval rack, or being penetrated by a broom handle, but when the man never shuts up, you cannot escape the fact that here, before us, is arguably the worst performance even given by a flesh and blood performer. And I’m not in the mood to argue. Throughout, I refused to believe that Cube wasn’t reading from cue cards, and even then, he never learned how to express anything with conviction. Sure, much of the fault lies with the screenplay, and I’ll grant that the writers (I see two listed, but experience teaches me there were dozens more) were making their first stab at English, but Cube (and Eva Longoria, for chrissakes) have done this before. Many times, in fact. No one expects an A game, but Jesus, surely there’s a notch above Z.
If you require a further plot summary, please know that I’m not going to provide it, as saying it out loud grants the movie a dignity it has not even remotely earned. It’s safe to say that the aliens of this updated version crave our data, and they’ve conquered time and space to consume it. I guess gorging on humanity’s information makes them stronger, only it would make much more sense if, after dining on YouTube videos, texts, and credit card bills, these visitors from outer space would implode from the madness of it all. If they learn by eating what we produce, surely they’d no longer be masters of the universe. Instead of arriving and staying as conquerors, they could join us in the all-American hobby of wasting away in fruitless pursuits. It doesn’t go unnoticed that the aliens don’t feast on our books and libraries, as the written word has largely disappeared from daily life. It’s certainly never been less relevant. What remains acts as Kryptonite to those left standing. Curious indeed that Amazon started as an online book seller. In 2025, it’s likely they sell more toilet paper.
So if you live online, substituting FaceTime and chatrooms for actual living, maybe this is the movie for you. It certainly captures the zeitgeist, in that we’re becoming more and more like cyborgs by the day. We’ve stopped dating, birth rates are plummeting, and everyone is so afraid of everyone else, we’ve come up with communication shorthand (emojis and the like) to avoid having to interact at all. If I sound like a grumpy old man, so be it. I embrace the label. Life never was much of a good time, but at least I wasn’t thinking about exiting it three dozen times a day.
So if War of the Worlds is to have a purpose, and believe me, anything generating this much press is very much worth discussing, let it be to remind us that we are now in the age where the right wing is now seen as the party of the working class, Republicans are most vocal about opposing war, and “privilege,” easily the most loaded term of them all, is now the defining characteristic of the poor and powerless. And that’s what the movie leaves us with. Authoritarians siding with the revolutionaries, the rebels, and defenders of liberty. Brought to you by a man squeaking by on a mere $236 billion.
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