Even before War of the Worlds entered the public domain a decade ago, H.G. Wells’ alien-invasion tale had been adapted over and over. Steven Spielberg’s 2005 movie is probably the best-remembered cinematic version, though Orson Welles’ 1938 radio broadcast, said to have sparked panic among more gullible listeners, is still the most famous.
A new version has arrived this week, directed by Rich Lee (making his feature debut after many music videos and commercials) and starring Ice Cube. Set very much in the present day, it digs into themes of surveillance in ways that are intriguing… until it makes a wildly ironic choice.
Ice Cube plays Will Radford, a domestic terror analyst for the Department of Homeland Security. His job basically involves monitoring surveillance feeds that keep a watchful eye on crucial Washington, DC, targets (the Pentagon, the White House, airports, etc.) and occasionally tracking down hackers intent on looting government data—or preventing them from disseminating said data, as the case may be.
This version of War of the Worlds takes place completely on screens—similar to the 2018 thriller Searching—so we watch Will from a webcam POV and we also see everything he looks at: Zoom and WhatsApp calls, text messages, social media feeds, streaming news reports, and so on. It takes only minutes to see Will exploit his high-level security clearance and tech savvy to keep tabs on his two adult children, especially Faith, his pregnant daughter. He’s less worried about Dave, his video game-playing son, but he’s literally got a way to peep inside Faith’s fridge to make sure she’s keeping her nutrition on track.
Intrusive? Yes. Creepy? Definitely. But War of the Worlds isn’t about cyberstalking your kids; it’s about an alien invasion, and Will is on the front lines (well, while seated at his desk) when a mysterious meteor shower turns into battle-ready tripods making their presence felt on Earth. We follow along as Will clicks around, realizing in real time what’s happening and using his extraordinary access to check on his loved ones. (At one point he remotely hacks a Tesla so that Faith can get to a hospital.) He’s also drawn into the official response—including Eva Longoria, representing NASA, and Clark Gregg as the DHS director—as the government scrambles to make sense of the situation and plan its response.
It’s a reasonably fresh way to approach Wells’ familiar story, which has inspired many, many similar stories after its publication back in the 1890s. But the movie’s script (by Kenneth A. Golde and Marc Hyman) makes some choices that would feel off-putting even if this War of the Worlds wasn’t brought to you by Amazon Prime Video.
Amazon is called out by name early on; Dave sighs that his dad’s job is “spying on what’s in people’s Amazon carts,” and that turn of phrase comes back around a few times. Notice that it doesn’t say anything about Amazon’s own desire to collect information about its customers—but that can’t help but loom in the viewer’s mind, especially as Will begins to realize the aliens have come to Earth specifically to feast on the planet’s vast data stores.
As the invaders slurp down the planet’s data—financial records are drained, GPS systems fail, and even Will’s Facebook page paying tribute to his late wife disappears—it becomes clear that their real target is a top-secret, highly powerful surveillance network launched despite the government’s knowledge (cut to X-Files-style documents and vintage photos) that such a move would be akin to “ringing a dinner bell” for the tech-hungry ETs.
Naturally, Will and his family (it turns out his son is a genius hacker, and his daughter is a genius biologist) come up with a plan to save the world—but they also need the help of Faith’s boyfriend, Mark, who is… an Amazon driver. When Will has a sudden, desperate, ticking-clock need of a thumb drive, Mark is able to power up an Amazon drone and fly it to him—but only after Will places “an official order on Amazon to activate the drone,” a process we all get to see as if we don’t know exactly what it looks like. Add to cart!
If that wasn’t enough, Amazon has humanity’s back yet again when the drone crashes and requires a manual assist to flip it right-side-up. The only person on the crumbling streets is… an unhoused man, who emerges from the safety of his tent to perform the deed after Faith, who’s triangulated his cell phone number, bribes him with a $1,000 Amazon gift card.
He accepts these terms after turning down a year of free internet from the government, because he figures that’s just asking Big Brother to spy on him. Because that’s not what Amazon essentially does to its customers?
“There’s more important things to do than worry about what’s in people’s Amazon carts,” Will declares at the end of War of the Worlds, which wraps up very tidily despite the hideous destruction we’ve just seen unfold on a global scale. The strategic determination to keep Amazon’s hands clean in a movie about online privacy is actually impressive. Making Amazon one of its heroes, however, is downright dystopian.
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