Prime Video’s “War of the Worlds” from director Rich Lee is a science-fiction thriller that attempts to put a modern spin on the 1898 H.G. Wells novel of the same name. It employs the screenlife style of visual storytelling where nearly everything plays out on the screens of computers, smartphones, tablets, televisions, etc. It’s an interesting approach to the classic story. Unfortunately it utterly crumbles under the weight of its own astonishing clumsiness.

Made during the COVID-19 era, “War of the Worlds” sees Ice Cube playing William Bradford, a Domestic Terrorist Analyst for the Department of Homeland Security. His job description is somewhat of a mystery, but basically he alone has full access to the globe’s digital systems. He sits alone at his computer in his DHS office, watching surveillance feeds, hacking into security cameras, listening in on cell phone conversations, monitoring people’s credit card accounts, and playing a cat-and-mouse game with a mysterious hacker named “Disruptor”.

When not serving as the government’s intrusive eyes, William uses his high-tech access to spy on his two kids. He constantly chides his son Dave (Henry Hunter Hall) who recently graduated college but spends most of his time at home playing video games rather than finding a job. He’s even more worried about his pregnant daughter Faith (Iman Benson) who is only a few weeks away from having her baby. It’s all part of this underdeveloped family angle that’s shoehorned in during some of the weirdest times.

As the controlling William secretly watches his daughter drink coffee and monitors her heart rate through her iPhone, the earth is shaken as countless meteors rip through the atmosphere and crash to the surface. Out of them crawl massive alien machines dubbed Tripods which immediately wrecking havoc all across the globe. William instantly finds himself caught in between his government duty and protecting his family.

Rather than giving us a thrilling visual depiction of the alien invasion, we watch it with William through a series of grainy low-resolution videos that are broken up by snippets of generic news reports and footage of soldiers running around in full soldier mode. In a sense it’s bold and (if it had been surrounded by good material) it could have been dramatically effective. But when viewed through the film’s lone gimmick, the invasion only feels threatening from a distance.

But the movie’s problems extend much further than that. The story is haphazardly thrown together and it features more cheap shortcuts than meaningful plot turns. Meanwhile watching Ice Cube trying to sell us on him being a tech whiz is unintentional comedy in itself. He does what he can with the script, but seeing how he reaches certain conclusions can be hilarious. And he’s saddled with so much laughably bad dialogue that it is impossibly to take him seriously.

Ice Cube isn’t the only victim from the cast. No one else gets a fighting chance either. Eva Longoria gets nothing to do playing NASA scientist Sandra Salas. A wasted Clark Gregg plays NSA Director Donald Briggs (Clark Gregg) whose cartoonish villainy barely registers. Neither Hall or Benson get much help either. Both are shuttled around as the script calls for it, and both are caught in ludicrous family drama that always pops up at the worst times.

Despite its efforts, “War of the Worlds” is hampered by enormous plot holes, ridiculous conspiracies, an incredibly goofy second-half twist, and an unhealthy dose of shameless product placement. And it’s all coated in artery-clogging cheese that seals the fate of this bad and baffling misfire. There’s an admirable idea somewhere within it. But it’s barely discernible amid the waves of bad scenes that get more preposterous with each passing one. “War of the Worlds” is streaming exclusively on Prime Video.

VERDICT – 1.5 STARS