Over the weekend, you've almost certainly heard about Ice Cube's newest movie — an adaptation of the classic sci-fi novel War of the Worlds. Social media has been abuzz with people watching the film since it debuted for streaming on Prime Video, but there's a single factor linking every post about it that I saw: nobody likes it.
The movie is a unique spin on the HG Wells story, utilising the "screen life" approach in which the story is told exclusively through the screens of computers, mobile phones, etc. Think horror or thriller movies like Host, Searching, or Unfriended. In this one, Ice Cube plays a man working on a surveillance program for the Department of Homeland Security, giving him a close-up view of the alien invasion at the heart of the story.
Critics have been unequivocal in their dismissal of the film, with its Rotten Tomatoes approval score currently sitting at a meagre 3%. There's just one positive review amid all the negativity, and even that one — over at Entertainment Weekly — calls the film "a mess" and "certainly stupid". So why are so many people watching it?
Well, there's always a curiosity factor around bad movies. "Preferences [for bad art] are rooted in expectations of entertainment value from the worst available option," wrote Evan Weingarten, Amit Bhattacharjee, and Patti Williams in a 2023 paper for the Journal of Consumer Psychology. There's something about watching something we know to be bad that just works for us, in the same way that the universally acknowledged naffness of a Christmas cracker joke pulls a room together.
Read more: Critics slam Ice Cube’s ‘disastrous’ and ‘shoddy’ new War of the Worlds adaptation (The Independent, 2 min read)
This is certainly the case when it comes to the popularity of screenings of "bad" movies. The Prince Charles Cinema in London, for example, holds monthly screenings of Tommy Wiseau's notoriously risible 2003 movie The Room — often with the director himself in attendance. Additionally, the Sharknado franchise ultimately spanned six movies, despite not a single soul ever flying the flag for its artistic quality.
There's joy to being in on the joke and a social currency that is only greater in the internet era. "In a quest to impress peers, someone may trump up moral charges, pile on in cases of public shaming, announce that anyone who disagrees with them is obviously wrong, or exaggerate emotional displays in taking ideological positions," wrote researchers in a paper for PLOS ONE.
In the case of a movie, that means wanting to be one of the voices declaring something to be not just bad, but "the worst movie ever" — as indeed many have done with War of the Worlds. Even celebrities have joined in, with The White Lotus star Patrick Schwarzenegger tweeting "I feel like I have to watch this now" in the wake of the wave of bad reviews.
Read more: Ice Cube shares how he measures a film's success (Cover Media, 1 min read)
"There’s an element of intrigue, raising questions of: ‘can it really be that bad?’," says therapist and filmmaker Duncan Paveling, who hosts the Movie Clinic podcast. "As human beings, we are inquisitive by nature, so perhaps we’re drawn to such experiences to understand why.
"Cinema often allows us to explore our feelings in a safe environment, even the parts we keep hidden — both from ourselves and others — so the idea of being drawn to something ‘bad’ may serve as a way to explore and understand our subconscious. In addition, to laugh, or poke fun at it, can be our way of coping or dealing with an uncomfortable experience, or even avoid unwanted feelings. The fine line between comedy and tragedy so to speak."
In the streaming era, there's another factor to watching something we know to be terrible: a lack of risk. As Weingarten, Bhattacharjee, and Williams wrote: "Preferences for these [bad] options emerge more frequently when their deviations from quality standards are perceived as benign (i.e., inconsequential). Accordingly, such preferences are less prevalent when consumption is consequential, and involves utilitarian goals or monetary costs."
This suggests that people are more likely to choose "bad" options when the risk is perceived as low and there's no money at stake. In the case of a movie on a streaming service, this is very much a factor. The monthly subscription fee is already paid, and so the only cost is the 89 minutes of time it takes to sit through the film, with the knowledge that it's easy to bail out early without anything being lost.
Read more: The Room: Is it still the worst movie ever made? (Yahoo Entertainment, 7 min read)
Williams, one of the authors of the aforementioned paper, told Knowledge at Wharton: “Sometimes it can be a distraction that comes without a lot of baggage. You don’t have to feel too guilty about it because it’s just a silly little thing and it’s not all that important."
Spending an hour and a half in the company of Ice Cube, a dull sci-fi narrative, and oodles of Amazon product placement — did you know their drones are "the future of delivery"? — isn't the sort of thing that comes with a long-lasting cost.
In a polarised age — especially on social media platforms — there's a joy to something upon which everybody agrees. Twitter, now known as X, has never been more fun than on the day the first trailer for Cats arrived, opening the floodgates on an onslaught of universal fun at the expense of an obviously terrible movie. An algorithm designed to stoke division and anger instead benefited from everybody sharing the same perspective. Nothing unifies like negativity.
Read more: Sir Ian McKellen Gets Honest About The Critically-Mauled Cats Film (HuffPost, 3 min read)
That's the sense in which bad movies can truly bring us together. As Paveling puts it: "An association of something bad with that of fun or laughter may also lead to a collective and shared experience, which can itself be a feeling or experience we wish to return to."
So, in a way, Ice Cube's dreadful new version of War of the Worlds is an act of public service. It's just what 2025 needed.
War of the Worlds is streaming on Prime Video UK now.
This article originally appeared on Yahoo Movies UK at https://uk.movies.yahoo.com/war-of-the-worlds-ice-cube-bad-movies-rotten-tomatoes-111139293.html
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