When it comes to the widely agreed opinion on the ‘worst movie ever’, a new film released on Prime Video has been added to the list of contenders.
Whilst many consider it to be films such as The Room, Madame Web, or The Last Airbender, all of those have at least one critic who says it was worth a watch.
This new film, however, debuted to a shocking 0 per cent on Rotten Tomatoes, meaning that every single critic who reviewed it gave it a ‘Rotten’ score, generally considered to be anything below three stars.
Starring Ice Cube, the film is a remake of The War of the Worlds, and fans continue to notice detail after detail that make it even worse.
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The classic novel by HG Wells from 1898 sees Earth invaded by aliens from Mars who severely outclass humanity.
Reading the book in 2025 may at times feel like it hits all the tropes of a Sci-Fi invasion movie, but that is largely because many of the tropes of alien invasions in fiction originated from this classic.
Though multiple attempts have been made to adapt it, Ice Cube’s newest is undeniably unique.
Produced in late 2020, the film adapted to COVID-19 by having everything take place on screens using a technique called ‘screenlife’.
Where this has been previously used for thrillers based around technology, the idea of this for War of the Worlds is that this is how many of us would experience an alien invasion, through our phones.
It is, however, widely agreed to be absolutely terrible.
Clips of Ice Cube’s lacklustre reactions to dramatic scenes have been going viral on social media; however, eagle-eyed fans have noticed one that is particularly shocking.
Gene Park, a video game critic for the Washington Post, shared the clip to X, saying: “this is an incredible movie actually im out of breath.”
This was a quote of them describing the clip, saying: “They just played the same clip of ice cube 5 times as a reaction shot”.
The scene from the film shows Ice Cube reacting in shock at moments happening on a screen, looking from side to side.
The Prime Video film loops the same clip roughly five times in the footage, which shows Park laughing and pointing out the moment.
One viewer replied, saying: “This is the successor to The Room.”
Another however, suggested that the cringy moments in the film are intentional, saying: “What I genuinely love about the movie is realistically if Earth was attacked by aliens, most of us would experience first contact via cringe reaction videos and streamer content.
“It achieves a sense of realism far beyond its scope that is equal parts terrifying and hilarious.”
Though the film debuted to 0 per cent on Rotten Tomatoes, a singular positive review has dragged it up to 3 per cent now, with Jordan Hoffman of Entertainment Weekly saying: “It's certainly stupid, but it's also a great deal of fun.”
On the other side, however, Ed Power of The Daily Telegraph gave the film a one-star review, saying: “It is silly, shoddy and features far too much of rapper-turned-leading man Ice Cube staring at a computer screen while looking as if he’s working through a reasonably urgent digestive ailment.”
War of the Worlds is available to stream on Prime Video now.
Topics: Rotten Tomatoes, TV and Film, Film
Michael Slavin