War of the Worlds (2025)

Wondering if the new 2025 War of the Worlds movie starring Ice Cube is actually based on the H.G. Wells novel? You’re not alone. While early reactions to this Amazon-branded screenlife thriller have been mixed (or brutal), we’re setting aside the hot takes to ask a better question: How closely does it follow the original War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells? Below, we evaluate it using our True Adaptation Checklist—breaking down what it keeps, what it changes, and whether it earns a place among the faithful… or just borrows the name.

Director: Rich Lee
Starring: Ice Cube, Eva Longoria, Clark Gregg
Unique Angle: A full-fledged screenlife sci‑fi thriller: the alien invasion plays out entirely through Zoom calls, surveillance feeds, desktop windows, and live cams. The film retools Wells’ themes into a warning about data addiction, surveillance capitalism, and what happens when the system you trust becomes your enemy.

⚠️ Spoiler Alert!
These reviews contain major plot and character spoilers for both H.G. Wells’ original novel The War of the Worlds and the adaptation being discussed.

If you’re new to the story and want to experience it spoiler-free, consider reading the book or watching the adaptation first.

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True Adaptation Checklist Evaluation

🔎 Curious how we decide what’s faithful?
See our True Adaptation Checklist — the foundation for every review.

Martian Invasion Essentials

🔽 Click to see how the invaders measure up

Cylinders (Martian Landing Pods)
⚠️ Sort of

Rather than traditional cylinders, the invaders launch a barrage of meteor-like objects to disable Earth’s satellites and deliver tripods—preserving the invasion’s shock while updating its mechanics.

Tripods
✅ Yes

The alien machines are faithfully depicted as towering three-legged structures, albeit with an updated, stylized design. A creative twist: their tops detach and function as flying machines, adding a new tactical layer while preserving the iconic silhouette.

Tentacles
✅ Yes

A large tentacle extends from each tripod, used to deliver a bio-cyber hybrid organism into data centers. While less numerous and more functional than in Wells’ version, the tentacle’s presence and its sinister, invasive purpose clearly honor the original concept.

Red Weed
❌ No

There’s no alien plant life spreading across the land as in Wells’ novel. However, the invader’s tentacle system visually echoes the red weed’s invasive sprawl as it branches through data centers—an eerie digital-age parallel, but not a literal adaptation.

Black Smoke
❌ No

No chemical weapon is employed. The only potential visual nod is a fleeting, ambiguous puff of dark cloud when Dr. Vargas approaches the landing pod.

Heat Ray
✅ Yes

The invaders unleash a devastating heat-ray reminiscent of Wells’ original weapon. It retains its lethal precision and destructive power, offering one of the more directly faithful elements in this modern reimagining.

Snatching and Feeding on Humans
❌ No

The aliens don’t harvest humans for physical sustenance. Instead, they consume our data—draining information through cyber-biological interfaces. It’s a metaphorical update to the original theme of resource extraction, but doesn’t involve literal feeding on people.

Martians Destroyed by Microorganisms
❌ No

The invaders are not undone by Earth’s microbes. Instead, the protagonists reprogram their hybrid biological/computer code to trigger self-destruction. It’s a clever ending, but not a microbial one.

Martian Intelligence
✅ Yes

The invaders display advanced intellect and cold strategic logic as they systematically hunt down data centers, coordinate planet-wide infrastructure attacks, and even unmask specific human adversaries via IP tracing to eliminate threats with precision.

Essential Characters

🎭 Click to view character comparisons

The Narrator
✅ Yes

Will Radcliffe (Ice Cube) serves as the central perspective through which we experience the invasion. Though physically confined to his DHS office under lockdown, he observes events unfold via computer and phone screens. This stationary, screenlife-based viewpoint replaces physical travel with digital surveillance, maintaining the narrator’s role as witness and emotional anchor.

The Curate
❌ No

While there’s no explicit religious figure like the curate, the film captures a similar arc through Briggs (Clark Gregg)—a high-ranking official whose blind faith in his own system brings ruin. As architect of the Goliath data program, he knowingly risks global safety, insisting the system is secure because it’s air-gapped. Briggs’ technological hubris echoes the curate’s blind faith, leading to ruin in a way that’s more bureaucratic than biblical.

The Artilleryman
❌ No

There’s no character in the film who parallels the Artilleryman’s grand delusions and underground survivalist visions.

The Astronomer (e.g., Ogilvy)
✅ Yes

NASA scientist Dr. Vargas (Eva Longoria) fills the role of the curious scientist. Like Ogilvy, she’s the first to approach a landing pod. Unlike him, she survives the encounter and continues investigating. Her expertise and persistence contribute meaningfully to understanding the threat and shaping the final solution—faithfully echoing Ogilvy’s spirit of inquiry from the novel.

The Brother (Secondary Perspective)
✅ Yes

Will Radcliffe’s two children—Faith and Mark—mirror the Brother’s role by providing separate, on-the-ground perspectives during the invasion. While Will remains in his DHS office, they navigate different parts of the crisis, allowing the story to expand beyond a single viewpoint. Like the Brother, their survival journey intersects with larger themes of chaos and resilience. Their medical and technical skills also contribute meaningfully to the resistance, giving their roles real narrative weight.

The Wife (Emotional Anchor)
✅ Yes

While there’s no spouse or romantic partner, the main character’s emotional drive centers on his two children. From his DHS office, he works tirelessly to protect them, communicate with them, and ultimately help ensure their survival. Their connection adds personal urgency and emotional depth to his otherwise isolated role.

Atmosphere and Allegory

🧠 Click for thematic breakdown

Appropriate Era & Setting
✅ Yes

This version is firmly rooted in the present day—set in Washington, D.C. and unfolding through the lens of a screenlife thriller. Though it departs from Victorian England, the adaptation preserves the spirit of Wells’ themes: invasive power structures, societal collapse, and human vulnerability in the face of overwhelming technology. The story still achieves the same emotional impact through modern interfaces (Zoom, surveillance feeds, messaging) that Wells achieved via Victorian realism.

Societal Collapse
✅ Yes

While the film skips large-scale migration due to its rapid, condensed timeline, it effectively conveys humanity’s rapid societal breakdown. The attacks trigger full-scale digital collapse—communication systems and surveillance networks fail; panic spreads through live feeds and personal screens. Humanity’s resistance proves futile against the invaders’ technological superiority. The result is a modern, screenlife-driven portrayal of collapse.

No Human Victory
❌ No

Unlike in the original story, the invaders aren’t brought down by nature or chance—they’re stopped by a deliberate human intervention. The protagonists reprogram the invaders’ hybrid code to trigger self-destruction. While it’s a clever and emotional solution, it breaks from Wells’ theme of humility and powerlessness. That said, the twist carries its own weight: the invasion itself is a direct result of human behavior—our unchecked data collection created the beacon that summoned them.

Atmosphere of Horror and Helplessness
✅ Yes

The film builds a steady sense of dread as the invasion unfolds. The confined, screenlife format enhances the helplessness—characters are isolated, disoriented, and unable to stop the invaders as systems fall one by one. The inevitability of the collapse is clear, and the fear is amplified by how quietly and suddenly everything unravels.

Narrator’s Psychological Decline
⚠️ Sort of

Will doesn’t suffer a breakdown, but he does unravel in his own way. Once a loyal government agent, he’s forced to confront the role his employers played in the invasion—not just causing it, but doing so despite knowing the risks. By the end, he’s disillusioned, defiant, and emotionally stripped down. It’s not Wells’ version of collapse—but it’s a quiet reckoning just the same.

Cinematic & Immersive Details

🎥 Click to explore cinematic elements

Martian Sounds
✅ Yes

The invaders emit a loud, disturbing sound that functions as an echolocator to identify nearby data centers. Though different from the iconic Martian cries or hums of past adaptations, the sound design is purposeful, alien, and unnerving—effectively signaling their presence and threat.

Visuals of Red Weed and Black Smoke
❌ No

While the film omits both the red weed and the black smoke, the Martian tentacles that snake through data centers create a sprawling, invasive effect reminiscent of the red weed. Their reddish glow seals the homage.

Heat Ray Effects
✅ Yes

The heat ray effects aren’t spectacular, but they get the job done. The blasts are destructive and unmistakably lethal—conveying the intended threat even if the visuals are rough around the edges.

Desolate Landscapes
✅ Yes

Though the film unfolds entirely through screens, it includes clear footage of widespread destruction—cities under attack, buildings reduced to rubble, and fiery explosions. The chaos is shown via news feeds, drone cams, and surveillance footage, effectively conveying the scale and horror of the invasion.

Decay and Rot
❌ No

While we briefly see the invaders die, there’s no lingering aftermath showing rot, decay, or environmental collapse. The film moves quickly from resolution to epilogue, without depicting the desolate physical remains typical of Wells’ original ending.

Bonus Features

⭐ Click for bonus adaptation features

The Thunder Child (Naval Resistance)
❌ No

There’s no true equivalent to the Thunder Child’s heroic last stand. While the Disruptor group makes a bold move to resist the invaders, it’s a failed attempt—not a self-sacrificing act in the face of certain death. Their effort lacks the symbolic weight and dramatic courage of Wells’ doomed naval battle.

Adaptation-Specific Creativity
✅ Yes

This version introduces bold, original elements that still honor the spirit of Wells’ story. The invaders feed on data instead of blood, tapping into modern fears of surveillance, privacy loss, and digital vulnerability. The story unfolds entirely through screen-based footage—a distinctive “screenlife” approach that reinforces themes of technological dependence and isolation. While the details differ, the film remains true to Wells’ deeper intent: using science fiction to challenge societal systems and expose dangerous power structures.

Observations and Analysis

🧩 Click to view strengths, weaknesses, and creative twists

Strengths:

The film preserves the spirit of Wells by replacing his colonial metaphor with a pointed critique of modern surveillance, data abuse, and government overreach.
The screenlife format, while limiting, works thematically. Experiencing the invasion through Will’s DHS screens reinforces the film’s critique of digital dependence and surveillance culture.
Start to finish, the film stays focused on its core idea: humanity’s obsession with data and control has made us vulnerable. Even when the story stumbles, the message stays on course.

Weaknesses:

Some awkward dialogue and blatant Amazon branding break the tone and remind you you’re watching a product as much as a story.
The film’s tight runtime and real-time approach leave little room to explore the broader societal impact. We don’t see migration, aftermath, or broader context—just one family’s digital front row.
The effects aren’t great, but that’s nothing new for War of the Worlds remakes. A few sequences look low-budget or unpolished, and while that doesn’t ruin the film, it does hold it back from hitting its full potential.

Creative Deviations:

The invaders are reimagined as bio-cyber hybrids—tiny spider-like machines with organic components. While the tentacle nods to Wells, the updated alien design reflects modern speculation about artificial intelligence, synthetic biology, and post-organic evolution—concepts Wells couldn’t have imagined but that feel chillingly plausible today.
The aliens feed on data, not humans—absorbing information through cyber-biological interfaces. It’s a chillingly modern threat, made worse by the fact that humanity brought it on itself. A secret DHS surveillance program acted as a beacon, drawing the invaders here. It’s not just resource extraction—it’s poetic punishment.
The invasion is framed within post-Wells alien mythology. When Will accesses hidden DHS files, folder names like Project Blue Book and Skinwalker Ranch nod to real-world UFO investigations and cover-ups. It’s a sly way of rooting Wells’ Martians in modern conspiracy lore—blurring fiction, history, and speculation.

Haven’t read the book?
📖 No problem — here’s a full chapter-by-chapter breakdown.

Faithfulness Rating

Loose Adaptation

📏 Why did we rate it this way? Click to reveal.

While this version includes many familiar elements—tripods, tentacles, heat rays, societal collapse, and a central narrator—it radically reimagines the story’s structure, characters, and resolution. The invaders aren’t unknowable colonizers undone by Earth’s microbes; they’re data-driven beings drawn by human surveillance and defeated through code.

These shifts go beyond a modern update. They reframe Wells’ narrative to reflect digital-age fears: privacy loss, government overreach, and the unintended consequences of our technological ambition. The fact that the invaders were a known threat to those in power deepens the allegory.

By referencing post-1947 UFO lore, the film expands on Wells’ legacy, trading Victorian awe for conspiracy-era paranoia. It’s a bold, thoughtful take—but one that rewrites core elements, placing it squarely in Loose Adaptation territory.

Our Verdict

💭 Here’s what we really think — click to reveal our verdict.

This one caught me off guard. It’s far from faithful—but it gets more right than you’d think.

Instead of colonialism, the film tackles modern surveillance, data addiction, and self-inflicted vulnerability. It keeps just enough of Wells’ original elements—tripods, heat rays, societal collapse—to stay grounded, then retools the rest into something pointed and unsettling. The threat isn’t just external—it’s what we’ve built and blindly trusted.

The inclusion of real-world UFO lore—files labeled Project Blue Book, AATIP, Skinwalker Ranch, and the 2024 UAP Disclosure Act, to name a few—adds another layer. More than Easter eggs, these nods reframe the invaders within a framework of secrecy, cover-ups, and paranoia that feels all too plausible.

And it’s not just that we built the systems that doomed us—it’s that the people in charge saw the danger and did it anyway. This is a clever fusion of classic sci-fi and modern conspiracy anxiety—something Wells never could’ve foreseen, but that still fits squarely in his tradition of social warning.

Yes, the film is far from perfect. Hard eye-roll for the “Amazon to the rescue” moments. And the omission of an Artilleryman-type character feels like a missed opportunity—they could’ve had someone hell-bent on stone-age survival.

But the core idea holds—and it holds strong. This isn’t a faithful adaptation, but it’s a bold one. And in its own way, it honors what War of the Worlds has always been: a mirror held up to our most dangerous assumptions.

🧠 Decide for Yourself

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Curious how other adaptations stack up to our True Adaptations Checklist? Check out these popular adaptations below:

Featured image via TMDb – Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0

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