Ice Cube Melted At The Box Office!

It's my ego.

With limited film viewing and lackluster streaming on Amazon, the Universal Pictures rework of The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells was a flop.

Ice Cube, the legendary rapper, actor, media and sports personality found out what a MAGA makeover can do to a career.

Once touted as anti-establishment, O'Shea Jackson, Sr. retooled himself as the businessman y'all love to hate. He was a principal figure in helping President Donald J. Trump win over Black men. He fell into the trap of dehumanizing former vice president Kamala Harris.

Yeah, I had reasons for Harris. Namely her support for Israel and parrotting Zionism. 

Harris was well equiped to take on the many issues we are facing. Alas, the American voters looked at Trump as the savior.

Now six to seven months into his second term, endless chaos.

Ice Cube wanted that tax break. He felt that prosecutor Harris would be a threat to Black men. He was secretly working with Van Jones, Jared Kushner, Ivanka Trump and Katrina Pierson to push a Republican plan for the Black voters.

Trump is now the single tier issue with Black men. He is pushing for more jail time for cop abusers (minus the Jan. 6 attackers), forced takeover of majority Black city (our nation's capital) Washington, DC, and stripping the legacy of Black achievement from federal agencies.

That Platinum Plan.

Rotten Tomatoes has the 2025 movie at a 0% rating. That is a rare feat especially for a thriller that is a reboot of the iconic 1950s film.

Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officer Will Radford works for a government surveillance program that can monitor every person on Earth. While helping FBI agents try to find a mysterious hacker, known as "Disruptor," meteors begin striking all over the planet. Large machines emerge from these and start attacking humans, which Will, and a friend from NASA, ascertain to be an alien invasion.

The president authorizes a military response, which other governments soon follow. Despite initial success, Will notices the machines concentrate around data centers worldwide. The larger machines then disperse smaller insectoid creatures to harvest the data inside these buildings. This allows the aliens to strengthen their machines and continue to defeat human forces. Will also discovers that Disruptor is his son, Dave. Dave sends him a link to classified information about a surveillance operation known as "Goliath." Reading these files, Will discovers that alien ships had previously arrived on Earth, and that the government knew they fed on data. Despite warnings that activating Goliath could alert the aliens, Director of Homeland Security, Donald Briggs, chooses to activate it anyway. Will confronts Briggs, who claims his actions were necessary to keep people safe. Briggs then locks Will out of the DHS system.

With the help of Dave and his team of hackers, Will re-enters the system, and they plant a virus to disable the aliens' machines. Though it works at first, the aliens shake off the virus and continue fighting. They are also able to locate and kill most of the hackers, except Dave. The military plans to bomb the DHS headquarters (under which Goliath is kept), to ensure the aliens can't access the system. With the help of Dave and his biologist daughter, Faith, Will breaks into the bunker in time and shuts down Goliath. With Goliath down, the military calls off the bombing.

Some time later, the aliens are defeated, and Will and Dave are celebrated as heroes. Briggs' crimes are exposed and he is arrested, and Faith is credited with using her DNA studies to ensure the aliens' defeat. Will is offered to lead a new surveillance program that won't interfere with people's privacy, but he declines, saying, "Now, I'm watching you."

Ice Cube, known for gangster rap, slapstick comedy and slice of life takes a gamble on seriousness.  Peter Debruge of Variety considered the film to be a poor adaptation of The War of the Worlds, criticizing the film's use of screenlife elements, Ice Cube's performance, and excessive Amazon product placement.

The most infamous sci-fi film with product placement is Mac and Me. It was a 1980s family comedy/drama with 80% of the film showing product placement.

The infamous dance scene inside a McDonald's was the part where the movie was panned. Squire Fridell, the American pitchman who became one of the famous incarnations of Ronald McDonald.