Ice Cube’s latest film, a modern adaptation of War of the Worlds, has been met with intensely negative reviews, debuting with a zero percent rating on the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes. Based on 15 initial critic reviews, the film holds a 0% on the Tomatometer, while its audience score sits at a meager 14%.
The Amazon Prime production, directed by Rich Lee, reimagines H.G. Wells’ classic 1898 novel and stars Ice Cube alongside Eva Longoria. Cube portrays Will Radford, a Homeland Security surveillance expert who confronts an alien invasion and a hacker almost entirely through his computer screen as he works to protect his family.
Critics have lambasted the film for its quality and its heavy-handed product placement. Peter Debruge of Variety described it as “a feature-length commercial for all things Amazon,” while Ed Power of The Telegraph criticized the movie as “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.”
The film’s conspicuous integration of Amazon products has also drawn ridicule online. One social media post highlighted a scene where an Amazon delivery driver advises Cube’s character to purchase a USB drive from Amazon for drone delivery via Prime Air. In response, Ice Cube’s son, actor O’Shea Jackson Jr., provided context, stating on X that the movie was “Shot during the pandemic. Released 5 years later.”
