War of the Worlds 2: The Next Wave Blu-ray features mediocre video and poor audio, but overall it's a disappointing Blu-ray release
After scoring a hit with their low-budget adaptation of H.G. Wells's "War of the Worlds"--arguably because of name confusion with the Tom Cruise blockbuster--Asylum Entertainment returns with this continuation of the sci-fi saga. C. Thomas Howell ('Soul Man') directs and stars in this frightening sequel that imagines the aliens returning to blast away the ruins of mankind. But the ETs had better watch out. This time humans don't just let their germs do their fighting for them!
At what point can one blame only insufficient funding for a bad movie? At what point does lack of
talent, a shortage of desire, and a "let's get this thing over with" attitude surpass either the
measliest or greatest of budgets and represent the true reason behind an epically bad movie?
Certainly, filmmakers have done incredible things with shoestring budgets. Robert Rodriguez's
El Mariachi was reportedly made for less than the price of a fairly cheap used car, and
Kevin Smith shot his black-and-white debut film Clerks after hours at
the convenience store he manned during the day. Both have spawned sequels, made their
directors household names, and earned back their budgets countless times over in tickets, home
video
sales, and other means of revenue. Then there's the flip side, mega-budget fiascos that lose
millions
upon millions of dollars at the box office, films with big names working either side of the camera
but that wind up as little more than curiosities and punchlines. Battlefield Earth is
probably the most widely-known of such titles; others include Howard the Duck,
Gigli, and The Adventures of Pluto Nash. It's not always about the money, and
it's not always about the talent; neither necessarily determines good or bad results, though a
mid-sized budget and average technical know-how can and often do mask major flaws in various
areas
of the filmmaking process. In fact, it's probably safe to say that such movies represent the normal
big studio release that earns a fair bit of money and is promptly forgotten in a world that's
becoming overwhelmed by the sheer volume of movies released in some form or another on a
weekly basis. Then there's a movie like War of the Worlds 2: The Next Wave. Made for a
reported sum of $500,000, the movie looks worse than even its microscopic budget suggests and
proves to be nothing short
of a mind-numbing, slow-as-molasses waste of good money. When there's no money and
absolutely no talent at work, it's impossible for a movie to find even a shred of success, and
indeed, War of the Worlds 2: The Next Wave proves itself to be a complete and utter
failure in
every area of its existence. At least this thing didn't have a $100,000,000 budget.
How did they afford such amazing sets and special effects?
It's been two years since Martians overwhelmed the Earth. The planet is still in shambles, and
man has only now begun to rebuild. George (C. Thomas Howell, The Day the Earth
Stopped) and his son Alex (Dashiell Howell) live in seclusion and face the realities of a
world devastated by alien attack. They must ride a bicycle to generate electricity, barter for
gasoline, and find value in a can of ravioli as a birthday present. When George discovers a radio
beacon
that he believes signals a pending second alien in invasion, he leaves Alex
alone at home and races to inform the scientific community of his findings. There, he learns that
the aliens may be capable of teleportation and that man has found a way to alter its fleet of jet
fighters to fly into outer space and fight the aliens amongst the stars. Unfortunately, the
aliens land and kidnap his son before he returns home, and George -- paired up with
fellow survivor Pete (Christopher Reid, House Party) must himself become an alien captive
if he is to have any chance at saving his son's life.
Believe it or not, the first five or ten minutes of War of the Worlds 2: The Next Wave
aren't
half
bad. The picture begins with a dramatic voiceover that seems to have been written by someone
with half a clue, and the movie does well enough in painting the picture of a post-apocalyptic world
that's in the process of picking up the pieces. It's an interesting setting and a sound idea, but the
movie soon reaches a point where whatever good comes from the opening minutes
is quickly forgotten. There are so many things wrong with War of the Worlds 2: Next
Wave that soon after filming began someone should have recognized how bad it was shaping
up to be, stepped in, sucked it
up, took the loss, scrapped the movie, and saved face for everyone involved. There's awful, and
then there's War of the Worlds
2: The Next Wave. That 0.5/5 rating for Megafault? It looks
like a solid 3/5 next to this trash, and make no mistake, Megafault stinks. War of the
Worlds 2: The Next Wave seems like it was edited by someone that had never seen a movie
before, let alone understood what pacing, structure, and plot mean to the flow and cohesion of a
movie. There are at least a handful of scenes in the film where it's almost impossible to tell
what's going on, not because the story is thematically deep or complexly developed, but because
there's just no reason why things happen or why some shots have even been inserted into the
movie; there are no contextual bearings, nothing that clues the viewer into why this is happening
or that is being said. It's a jumbled mess of a movie that's structured to the point that viewers
will catch the gist of what's happening but never really understand why, but then again, that
points to far deeper problems than those that clearly existed inside the editing room.
Indeed, it's hard for an editor to make much of a movie that's as poorly-conceived and executed as
this. Given
the budget, it's no surprise that the editor had to toss in the exact same interior cockpit
point-of-view shot that shows a jet fighter weaving through an incoming horde of alien ships
about a dozen times in the span of two or three minutes. One can't blame the editor for trying to
piece
together about 15 minutes worth of exterior shots that were all filmed within about 50 feet of one
another on the same stretch of sidewalk. When the bulk of the film's action takes place in the
interior of an alien spacecraft that looks like it was made from bunched up bed sheets and large
pieces of pink plastic hanging from the ceiling, there's no real way to create any kind of structure
or flow when everything looks exactly the same, not to mention the characters do and say
basically the same thing in every shot. Yes, War of the Worlds 2: The Next Wave's
problems run deep and wide; every aspect of the production is in shambles with little
regard for professionalism or quality of product evident in the final cut. It's obvious that the
filmmakers scrounged
around and used anything and everything they could find in the movie and implemented every
cheap filmmaking technique they could think of to try and mask the film's problems. For example,
the same shotgun -- identified by a bundle of rope wrapped around its stock -- is used in two
distinctly different scenes and by two unmistakably different
characters when it was neither given to nor taken by the second character. A pilot wears what
looks like a World War II-era Nazi helmet for no real
reason. Some shots inside the alien spacecraft are accompanied by strange psychedelic visuals
that are never really explained. Pilots are placed in some jet fighters that have been converted so
as to be outer space-worthy and they're to be controlled from a remote command center.
One of the pilots suddenly becomes worried that his jet is moving while he's not doing anything.
Supposedly, nobody bothered to tell him what was going on. Yikes. It's only the fate of the world
riding on his shoulders. The list goes on and on, and maybe someone, somewhere had
some halfway rational explanation for everything that happened in the movie (yeah, probably
not), but it never, ever
translates into the finished product. Memory cannot recall a more poorly-constructed movie as
this.
Adding insult to injury, War of the Worlds 2: The Next Wave delivers some of the worst
acting
ever committed to...whatever it was this was filmed on; who cares. C. Thomas Howell -- he who
wears the Star Wars cap in Red Dawn -- is the best of the bunch, but that's not
saying all that much. He might have been too busy directing to be bothered to turn in a good
performance -- or maybe vice versa -- but either way, he shows no real emotion, overacts,
stumbles from one
scene to the next, and seems to realize that there's no point to anything happening in the movie.
War of the Worlds 2: The Next Wave also features Christopher Reid of "Kid 'n Play" fame.
Talk
about a blast from the past.
Blame the absence of his trademark hairdo, blame the script, blame anything, but Reid's character
is just about the worst excuse for a sidekick ever to appear in a movie. In his defense, though,
Reid
seems to be having fun with
the part; he's apparently the only one that's in on the joke, grossly overacting to an obvious level
and grating on the
audiences' nerves, but at least he manages to wake up dozing viewers every few minutes. The
oddest thing about the movie is some random scientist who's figured out how to remote pilot the
jets; she blabbers on with some faux Mississippi accent that's some kind of bad. When there's
techno-babble in Star Trek, it sounds
like the characters know what they're talking about, even if it doesn't make any sense. Mississippi
gal just sounds like she's making stuff up as she goes. How she
manages to keep a straight face remains a mystery, but half the film's budget probably went in
the trash when the filmmakers had to throw away hours upon hours of her scenes because the
rest of the cast couldn't help but laugh. The special effects are expectedly bad, but who cares.
They don't make all that much sense in "context," whatever that means in this movie, and they
look like something from a video game circa 1996. Speaking of 1996, the aerial battles are clearly
ripoffs of those seen in Independence Day,
except in War of the Worlds 2: The Next Wave, they're boring. What a mess.
Surprise! War of the Worlds 2: The Next Wave's 1080p, 1.78:1-framed transfer doesn't look
all
that bad. Best described as "steadily underwhelming," there's little that stands out as egregiously
faulty but nothing that makes this anything more than a forgettable transfer, either. The movie
sports a bland and flat texture that looks like low-grade high definition video; detailing is adequate in
some facial close-ups and on some building façades and rough pavement, but viewers shouldn't expect
anything above and beyond what a movie with a half-a-million dollar budget would reasonably look
like. Flesh
tones capture a red tint in places, but blacks are decent if not somewhat underwhelming. Color
reproduction is generally sound, and the film doesn't want for a more pronounced palette. There's
also a
decent sense of depth to some scenes. Unfortunately, the transfer features some unsightly blocking
and uneven color gradations, but issues like edge enhancement and aliasing aren't overtly
problematic. For a budget title, War of the Worlds 2: The Next Wave doesn't completely
disappoint.
War of the Worlds 2: The Next Wave flops onto Blu-ray with a paltry Dolby Digital 2.0 lossy
soundtrack; no lossless or uncompressed mixes are included. The track delivers a suitably clear
presentation with only a few drawbacks, but no major selling points, either. The track never sounds
cramped or crippled; effects and music spread out well enough, even if they're lacking in absolute
clarity. Sound effects deliver just a little bit of oomph; lumbering aliens and rumbling jet engines are
convincing enough, but are a far cry from what listeners might otherwise expect from a Sci-Fi movie,
particularly those with bigger budgets and a more heavily promoted Blu-ray release. Dialogue is
sometimes flimsy and unbalanced; it occasionally becomes lost underneath music and effects, an
example coming during an aerial combat sequence in chapter 11. Unfortunately, there's a lip synch
issue, most readily noticed around the 17-minute mark; don't count on an uproar or a recall. This 2.0 track gets the job
done but offers little more beyond the basics. That's better than this movie deserves.
Just when it seems like movies couldn't get any worse, War of the
Worlds 2: The Next Wave rears its ugly head. The movie's tough to sit through and not even all
that
much fun to laugh it. It oddly starts out promisingly enough, but it's just a mirage; War of the
Worlds 2: The Next Wave is one of those movies that just shouldn't have been made; with no
budget,
no talent, and a lame idea, that money would have been better spent on a book of matches, a bottle
of lighter fluid, and every last copy of The Love Guru; there's
nothing like killing two bad movies with one budget. For those that dare even consider watching this
mess, Echo Bridge's Blu-ray delivers a decent 1080p transfer and a passable lossy soundtrack, but no
extras. There's just no value here; at least Megafault was easy to make fun of. This one's
just pure torture. Skip it.
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