A Couple of Mediocre Movies Reviewed – Cleaner & War of the Worlds

Cleaner (2025)

Cleaner is a 2025 movie starring Daisy Ridley. She is window cleaner in a large building who gets trapped when a bunch of terrorists take over. She must eliminate them one by one while gathering their weapons and foiling their plans. Sound familiar? Yes, it’s Die Hard. But this is the 2025 version where a girl boss who used to be some sort of super soldier in the military is now cleaning windows. Oh, and she has her autistic brother in tow and must keep him from getting into trouble. Very 2025.

The action scenes in this flick were decent enough. The acting wasn’t terrible. I liked it better the first time I saw it when it was called Die Hard. I give this movie a score of 50 potatoes. It wasn’t terrible but it wasn’t good either.

War of the Worlds (2025)

This is yet another re-telling of the H.G. Wells classic story. In this one, it is up to Ice Cube to save the world from invading aliens who want to feast on our data. Yes, our data. Yeeesh. So, the alien ships show up and locate the largest data centers in the world to munch down. Ice Cube literally phones it in as the entirety of the movie is watched through the lens of various web cams and cell phone feeds. How modern, right?

It turns out the government knew these aliens existed and that by creating mega data centers they would certainly return and wreak havoc. The government in all their wisdom went ahead with the giant data centers anyway. And in case you are wondering, these are data centers filled with every person’s personal data.

Why didn’t they just create giant bait servers in the desert surrounded by nukes they could set off once the aliens went after it? What did the aliens plan to do with the data, send everyone spam emails or try to get them to renew their auto warranty?

The story has plenty of plot-holes and the special effects weren’t that special. This movie was just enough to keep a couple of sunbaked beachgoers entertained after being outside all day, but I cannot say that it is in anyway a good movie. I honestly believe a high school senior with a knack for writing could have turned in a better script. 46/100 potatoes.