War Of The Worlds [2025]

After all the hype (what's the opposite of hype - derision?) that we have seen for this film, it had to be a movie night prospect. It's even free with Amazon Prime, a fact that will make a lot of sense really quickly. You see, in the grand pantheon of adaptions of the H.G. Wells novel that don't really follow the plot of the original, this movie provides something the 2005 Tom Cruise flick didn't have: masses of overt product placement for the US's top abhorrent billionaires. Amazon, of course, is not only mentioned (specifically a reoccurring bad joke about spying on people's Amazon carts) but the main character's future son-in-law is a driver for Amazon and a key moment in the film involves him using Amazon's drone shipping service to save the day. And that's actually not all. Tesla is prominently featured for its self-driving capabilities, Facebook makes multiple appearances as both a source of communication and a way for the main character to memorialize his dead wife, and Whats App, which we now know is owned by Meta, is the main way characters video call each other, which is in no way true to reality unless you live outside of the United States. 

In fact, let me talk a little bit more about video calls specifically because they are constant in this film with good reason: this is a film that takes place almost entirely on a computer screen a la Unfriended or Open Windows. Ice Cube places an NSA guy who spies constantly on his kids. When the aliens come, apparently they all still have time for video calls so that Cube can see the aliens without actually leaving his Pentagon bunker. It's so stupid, I can't even. The parts that aren't on the computer screen are just shots of Ice Cube's face in his office going through some of the most hilarious and muted face journeys you could possibly imagine. Of course they discover that the aliens are cyborgs and being half organic-half machine is perfect since Cube's daughter is a biologist and his son is a computer hacker who he's been unknowingly trying to track down. They infect the aliens with a virus when they go to gobble up that sweet, sweet data and the family tension is reconciled even though we get no evidence that Cube isn't still stalking his kids.

For the stupid style choices, the predictable as hell plot, the overly dramatic editing, the expressions, and the blatant product placement, this is a good time. Of course, as long as you can watch it for free and aren't giving Amazon any more money to watch this hour and a half long ad.

Spoon Rating: 5 

Also that night we did something probably totally ill advised and did a single elimination taste test of 16 different milk chocolates. Our top three brands were Ritter Sport, Tony's Chocolonely, and Chocolove.