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Set your expectations low for this!

 AduroT wrote:
Set your expectations low for this!

What? No Tom Cruise? My expectations couldn't get any lower.

A reimagining, with very little to do with the original source?
We can assume the end will line up fairly similarly though. Will it have a skull and crossbones though?

Unless it's set in Woking and there's a cold involved, i'm not interested.

Honestly I'm not a fan of "shaky camera someone live recording" being used through a whole film. The idea that they then mix this up with "its viewed on a home PC for the entire film" is equally "annoying" to me.

It's the kind of thing I might enjoy from a really small self funded creator or something made during the Pandemic - but for a regular film with a massive budget behind it - naw it just feels like an annoying way to create a film that they didn't have to do.

It would take one heck of a script and acting and plot to really hook me in such a film.

Yikes, that is truly terrible.

 Overread wrote:
Honestly I'm not a fan of "shaky camera someone live recording" being used through a whole film. The idea that they then mix this up with "its viewed on a home PC for the entire film" is equally "annoying" to me.

You've got to cut Ice Cube some slack. As an elderly gentleman maybe he doesn't get out of a chair so well anymore.

...


...

Yeah, okay. Not a fan of shaky cam and screen in screen either.

Okay, this is getting bloody stupid now.

Wicked storms the boxoffice and the obvious answer is Jeff Wayne's hugely successful War of the Worlds. Steven Spielberg's own effort - the man who gave us the summer blockbuster with Jaws itself - was panned for not being set in England, early 1900s...

...and we get Eagle Eye vs Transformers.

At least Independence Day had the decency to go under a different name.

This is obviously and original script that they did not think could cut it on its own, so they forced the creative team to turn it into some sort of War of the Worlds Re-boot.

I mean, the idea of a "Found Footage" War of the Worlds could really work. I mean, the original source book and the radio play definitely play on those ideas.

However, this looks terrible. The Data angle and tech-paranoia is especially head-scratching.

It’s really not good.

Not completely worthless though. Just entirely missable.

A (relatively) historically accurate adaptation of the original work is right there for the taking, yet for some reason we just keep getting given generic sci-fi slop.

Wouldn't it be an innovative twist on the source material if the invaders were brought down by a computer virus, eh, eh?

But also…if they just want to scoff our data? Why exterminate us?

Who cares if Aliens get out data? What are they gonna do with it?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Seriously. Just give this one a miss.

It’s not Section 31 bad, but there’s just not much here.

The tripod designs look cool. But what a dumb premise.

Oh my stars... at least when the big brains invaded Earth in Futurama, they were trying to destroy all sources of new data so theirs was always accurate.

I do not at all understand the motivations of a physical invasion, if you were an alien race that ate data. Just hide yourselves in an advanced power generator, and tap the satellite feeds or something.

 Inquisitor Gideon wrote:
Unless it's set in Woking and there's a cold involved, i'm not interested.

Every time I head from Kings Cross to my works London office near Tottenham Court Road, I sing a little Uuulaaaaahhhhhh! To myself as I wander down the Euston Road

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Who cares if Aliens get out data? What are they gonna do with it?

All our data?

Presumably be confused AF about the economics of Nigeria sustaining a royal family consisting of some 2 million male heirs sharing their inheritance with all and sundry

Remake of Tom Cruise’s Sci-Fi Megahit Starring Ice Cube Debuts with 0% Rotten Tomatoes Score - Fiction Horizon

The film was released by Universal Pictures on Amazon Prime Video on July 30, 2025. Unfortunately, it was not well-received. The movie currently has a 0% approval rating from critics based on 10 reviews and only a 12% approval rating from audiences, based on over 250 ratings. While the number of critic reviews is small, it doesn’t look like the scores will improve much as more opinions come in.

No surprise there...

Apparently it was made in 2020 during Covid lock down, and sat on for five years.

In dubious defence?

Whilst not a good film, there is potential there for the overall concept to have worked.

No, not the “them are heres to ate us datas”. That is a silly concept.

But to take the “I’m stuck in a safe place, using electronic communications to try to monitor my loved ones and guide them to their own safety”? That has feet.

Unfortunately, the feet in practice are in football boots three sizes too small, with the laces tied together, and covered in well set concrete.

And the whole “Amazon to the rescue, and isn’t a good thing the father has absolutely zero respect for his kids and so intrudes on their privacy in the most egregious and “surely that’s illegal” way possible” is just grotesque,

Especially that last bit. Because hes linked into their social media accounts, smart watches and that from the get go. That’s a pre-existing setup. And we’re meant to see that as a good thing.

Eff. Off.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Now, you take that gross breach of privacy, and turn Ice Cube into a stalker. An out and out, unabashed “I know what I’m doing is wrong, but I’ve decided I own this person”. And you keep it creepy.

But, you also see them try to guide their victim to safety.

With careful, nuanced writing? There’s the possibility for a decent thriller there. But you have to accept that the person doing it for what is now the right reasons, is still absolutely In The Wrong.

Have messed up stuff like humanity losing, leaving the victim with Just Their Stalker somewhere ostensibly safe. Take away the victim’s right to determine their own fate. Give the stalker a clear option to save the victim’s loved ones too, but choose not to, Because The Victim Is Their Property.

There’s a lot of messed up stuff you could with the underlying point of view concept.

All I want is a version that captures the glory that is HMS Thunder Child.

You know who did that? Jeff Wayne's Musical Version.

Damn straight on both counts!

Not just because I grew up on it (to the point Mum and Dad ran a War of the Worlds themed Cub Camp*) but because it dramatises it in just the right way.

I’m surprised nobody has tried to adapt it for film. It’s a spritely 94 minutes, but feels like a much longer experience. And you’d only need to portray the in-character songs as a form of mania. A way to show, particularly the Artilleryman, how people have had their minds shattered.

Slightly daft thought? The only scene in all the War of the Worlds/Aliens Invade Earth movies I’ve seen that compares? Is the Boxer duffing up the Martians in Mars Attacks!, specifically to buy time for the others to escape. Same energy, different technique.

*Take a wild guess what was used as the alarm in the mornings….

It’s nice to see everyone dunking on this turkey.

I haven’t seen Dan Murrell trash a movie so gleefully since Gotti.

Remake of Tom Cruise’s Sci-Fi Megahit

How did I miss this AI generated description from above?

 Ahtman wrote:

Remake of Tom Cruise’s Sci-Fi Megahit

How did I miss this AI generated description from above?

Did someone say AI-Generated description?

 AduroT wrote:

"How can a tank tank if it's data tank tanks?" is my new favourite quote. This movie sounds so incredibly dumb.

Wait that's the plot?

If they'd released this during the pandemic yes it would still have been utterly freaking stupid but it could have been a "cult-classic-lockdown" film.

Also probably should have done it as a comedy it sounds JUST like a comedy spoof script

It's dumb but entertaining. I've seen far worse movies.

The zooming and shifting focus in the beginning when nothing is really happening is a too frantic for my taste. A bit old man yells at cloud, but like I said before, that windowed style isn't really for me. And the part where it's revealed that they has come to eat our datas felt a bit overacted. Aside from that, it's pretty competently made and acted with decent pacing. In fact with all the windowed nonsense going on there's so much happening that you'd have hard time getting a thinking break, which I think helps the movie a lot. Unless the movie was made to launder drug money it probably wasn't a strain on the budget either since the effects had the benefit of blending into stock footage, using lower resolution and artifacts and all that nonsense. Alien stuff looked decent enough.

 Overread wrote:
Also probably should have done it as a comedy it sounds JUST like a comedy spoof script

It's your responsibility to watch it as a stone faced comedy . If you take any of it seriously, like, at all, it's your own damn fault.

It's a pretty bad movie.

It uses the backdrop of a government spy guy uses lots of tech stuff to see cameras and stuff to tell the story, which honestly could have been interesting? Kind of a play on the legendary War of the Worlds radio show but using modern mediums.

But the production values are so profoundly bad. So profoundly bad. The acting is poor. The CGI is terrible. Moments that should be exciting or compelling are just blindly chaotic to no effect.

I'd agree this movie would work better as a comedy.

I disagree it's even remotely intended to be one. If this movie is funny, it's funny by virtue that it's too bad to be taken seriously but it's also not bad enough to be so bad its good.