In what might be the ultimate test of “do streaming audiences care if a movie is awful,” we have a new entry over on Amazon Prime Video. That would be its original version of War of the Worlds, yet another adaptation of the 1898 sci-fi classic. It’s one of about nine different adaptations and documentaries about the work, and it is, without question, easily the worst.
War of the Worlds, despite being the #1 original movie on Amazon Prime Video and its #2 offering on the entire service, the movie has a truly rare 0% from critics. That’s as low as it goes, and if you were thinking that maybe it’s just snooty critics who don’t appreciate a shlocky sci-fi cult classic, it also has a 12% audience score. Twelve.
The movie does star people you’ve heard of or at least recognize, Ice Cube, Eva Longoria and Clark Gregg, to name a few. But we are in an era where what might have been a DVD bargain bin release is now the most-viewed movie on one of the biggest streaming services in the world. I believe we call this “peak slop,” in today’s parlance. Here’s the synopsis of this new version:
“A computer security analyst working for the U.S. government finds his daily life disrupted by an alien attack. Accustomed to dealing with virtual threats, his struggle extends to secrets the government may be hiding.”
The hook here is that the movie is filmed entirely on a computer screen, which in and of itself is not an impossible idea to execute. I really enjoyed the horror movie Unfriended, which had the same idea. There was also the thriller Missing, which was the same concept. So it can work.
This is bad. This is so bad there are some critics unironically calling it one of the worst movies ever:
Adam Olinger (per Rotten Tomatoes): “I really don’t like how a lot of modern reviewers say outlandish statements like “This is the worst movie ever made”. Mainly because it devalues films like War of the Worlds, who had to work really hard to actually be one of the worst movies ever made.”
Or at the very least, it’s “in contention for one of the worst movies of the decade so far,” says Austin Burke in his 1/10 review. I’m starting to think I have to watch this.
There’s also apparently something about the screen-based film that’s actively an ad for Amazon itself, with one review calling it “a 90-minute infomercial.”
War of the Worlds may truly be an all-timer, in a bad way. We’ll see how long it can actually manage to stay on top of Amazon’s most-watched list, but wow, this is something to behold.
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Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.
