War of the Worlds 2: The Next Wave (2008)

If I had my way, I would never review or watch The Asylum’s mockbusters. However, War of the Worlds 2: The Next Wave caught my attention due to Johnny Butane’s weak DVD releases that had a nonhorror category. Let’s be honest, this makes zero sense. This had to have been an April Fool’s prank because there is no way he would challenge me to have a mental breakdown by watching another Asylum movie unless that was something he wanted. I can clearly picture Mr Butane giddily clapping to himself because him having me watch this is bound to leave me in a tirade, similar to my audio review of The Asylum’s Monster. I hated that movie with a passion. A tirade was not something I anticipated while on my sabbatical from all The Asylum crap. Until this movie quoting The Godfather Part III ‘pulls me back in’.

If you haven’t heard of Warl of the World then you should know this came out in 2005 and was a forerunner of the entire mockbuster genre.

The story behind the film just like many others is filled with intelligent twists and turns. C. Thomas Howell aka the Soul Man, appeared for the second time as a scientist George Herbert in the alien warfare film. It premiered at the same time as Spielberg’s adaptation, which depicts a fight against alien invasions as a core theme. He was also placed as the director of the project, enabling him to exhibit his superior skills in cinematography. The Asylum also produced a low-budget film paying homage to Wells’ classic cover art.

With the immense possibility of America losing in the War of the Worlds, it’s safe to assume the entire world is aware of the struggles America had to go through. And sure enough, everyone knows how that situation comes to an end. I am in fact assuming here, but the remaining part of the globe literally did pick themselves after the loss sufficiently after two years. Triumphantly showing off the advancements remaining aliens have successfully achieved. Sadly during the odds with the current volume of death, destruction and abandoned assets, only a handful of people stood a chance of winning the war against the alpha invaders. I am Z Omega 2 comes to mind when I try to picture the horrifying odds humanity has to face. It’s desolate and shocking but the only thing needed to survive in this new world order is canned food, and when George’s son gifted him a meal box, George knew he went far too.

However, although the world is a bombed-out shell and civilization has been pushed back rather significantly, the “Free Forces” military and scientific regime, whose base resembles an old dilapidated building, has been fitting F-22 fighter planes with leftover alien technology which allows them to fire laser beams and travel in space. How is this possible when canned food and gasoline are extremely rare and telecommunications are basically non-existent?

Martians are planning a second strike. Alex is taken prisoner by them And George always the goal-driven parent captures himself as well, in the hopes of saving his son, all while braving being encased in rubber smegma and trying to not be transformed into a walking juice box. Our new, alien-fitted air force continues to soar toward outer space, intent on battling the alien mothership. Independence Day-themed battles at the centre of the earth and even outer space will result from this, and the thought alone ignites in my head a desire to fight in Xevious.

At the start, there is roughly a good ten minutes filled with the aliens and their technology, which is enough to give you a headache. It does not stop there, as the screenwriters will attempt to include talk about the computer “codes”, biomechanics, the mesosphere, wormholes, time “jumping”, and a sort of mutant virus. Things even begin to dip a little into the Matrix territory There’s definitely enough scientific mumbo jumbo stuffed into one movie to give you a headache.

But despite the script’s insistence on cramming as many ideas as they can, it is overwritten with a bunch of scientific explanations, and underwritten in regards to the narrative – It is all pretty disconnected, and the dialogue is sub-par. The poor editing desperately attempting to mask a rush job also single-handedly broke the movie. Too many times did this movie feel like it was buying time; as if there wasn’t enough story to fill up 90 minutes and there wasn’t a sufficient budget to fill up that extra time with extravagant special effects.

At least the alien threat isn’t terribly threatening this time around. The aliens seem less like a malevolent force, and more like a device to push the plot along, which they are. Almost all of the concentration is on the human characters, which is fine, as long as they are people you care about. Most of them aren’t! Many of them don’t even seem to be real people. Even C. Thomas Howell’s strong side gets the face of an angry old man more often than I assume he himself realizes, and a notoriously brainy female scientist is played by an actress who, in my opinion, had the worst idea of trying to invoke a bad version of Dolly Parton’s voice. That style makes everything she tries to say sound fake.

George’s journey to help his son will have him rendezvous with Christopher Reid. Think of the hip-hop duo Kid’n’Play who acted in the House Party movies. Christopher Reid was the Kid and his flat-top hairdo is long gone. His latest house party now takes place at The Asylum. Being light-skinned Reid is always reduced to yelling “shit” a lot while overdoing Will Smith’s cowardly brother. It’s not a terrible portrayal, but more like a badly written character stereotype.

Although rough around the edges, most of the CGI elements are surprisingly above pay for an Asylum production. The f/x are not very varied and the limited budget only permits them in short bursts. I got the impression that the majority of the production budget went into the CGI work, impoverishing the remaining elements of the production.

War of the Worlds 2: The Next Wave ended up feeling like a late 1950s science fiction movie. A less entertaining one, but not a complete waste of time. In other words, meh.

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