The movie has been universally panned by critics as a poor adaptation of the original novel and a feature-length advertisement for Amazon.

None of the 20 reviews listed for War of the Worlds on Rotten Tomatoes gave it a positive score, and the fan-generated Popcornmeter only comes out slightly better at 18%. 50 Cent posted the following to Instagram upon seeing headlines about how poorly this sci-fi flick has been received (edited for grammar and clarity):

The 2025 movie adaptation of the hit alien-invasion novel, "War of the Worlds" takes place in the present-day digital landscape with Ice Cube leading the cast in his role as Will Radford, a top cyber-security analyst for Homeland Security.