Movie Reviews

‘The Tomorrow War’ Review – Big, Bombastic Fun

By Michael Cook
July 3, 2021
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Synopsis

In The Tomorrow War, the world is stunned when a group of time travelers arrive from the year 2051 to deliver an urgent message: Thirty years in the future, mankind is losing a global war against a deadly alien species. The only hope for survival is for soldiers and civilians from the present to be transported to the future and join the fight. Among those recruited is high school teacher and family man Dan Forester (Chris Pratt). Determined to save the world for his young daughter, Dan teams up with a brilliant scientist (Yvonne Strahovski) and his estranged father (J.K. Simmons) in a desperate quest to rewrite the fate of the planet.

It feels like Hollywood’s got a pattern of releasing alien invasion films around the Fourth of July. It doesn’t happen often, but it’s weird that it’s happened multiple times, right? The Tomorrow War is just the latest example of this trend in action – a big, bombastic action film, featuring a charismatic cast battling a bunch of bloodthirsty aliens. Now, sure, The Tomorrow War is not as explicitly Fourth of July themed as, say, Independence Day. But it has a fairly similar vibe.

Like Independence Day, The Tomorrow War succeeds largely thanks to its dedicated cast, well-executed action scenes, and stellar VFX work, in spite of being an otherwise average action film. The overarching plot is just an excuse to get the cast fighting as many aliens as possible. But it’s hard to be disappointed about that when the action is this fun. And like Independence Day, and a host of other action movies, there’s a sweet emotional core running throughout the film. Is it a perfect movie? No. But it’s a whole lot of fun – and that’s all it needs to be.

Plot

As I said, the plot is just an excuse for a bunch of humans to fight a bunch of aliens. But who cares? In The Tomorrow War, a group of time travelers arrives in the middle of a soccer game, announcing they’re from a war-torn 2051. They’re fighting a bunch of aliens (“Whitespikes”), and are in desperate need of help. The entire planet quickly enacts a draft, sending civilians and soldiers to the future to fight off this alien threat. Dan (Chris Pratt) gets drafted and assigned to a research team that’s creating a toxin that can kill the Whitespikes before they wipe out what’s left of humanity. But before they can make the toxin, they need to capture a Whitespike queen. Cue a bunch of explosive action sequences, some time travel shenanigans, and even a few quips.

A lot of The Tomorrow War doesn’t make much sense if you think about it too hard. Like – how does the time travel actually work? A half-hearted explanation is given, but it never really explains how the simple fact that humans in 2022 know they’ll be attacked by aliens in 2051 doesn’t cause the mother of all paradoxes. And speaking of the time travel, that whole concept is one of the film’s biggest strengths and greatest weaknesses. On the one hand, it separates the film from every other alien invasion story that’s come before it. But on the other hand, it means we don’t get to see that moment where the aliens first invade. And that’s my favorite part of these kinds of movies.

CHRIS PRATT, EDWIN HODGE, and SAM RICHARDSON stars in THE TOMORROW WAR. Courtesy of Amazon Prime Video

The Action is Great

However, nobody is watching a film like The Tomorrow War in search of a gripping narrative. It’s just not what these movies are about. We watch musicals for the songs, comedies for the jokes, and action movies for… well, the action. And that’s precisely what The Tomorrow War gets right. It is filled with action. Sometimes, it feels a little redundant – particularly in the final two action scenes, which come across as two separate climaxes. But it’s not a big problem. There’s a lot that happens in this film, sometimes a bit too much, to be honest. But McKay and Dean are smart enough to keep things moving fast enough that you never grow bored or have the opportunity to overthink anything. And honestly, that’s all I ask for. Sure, The Tomorrow War is kind of an amalgamation of a dozen other films. But it’s a lot of fun anyway.

The Visuals Do a Lot of the Heavy Lifting

An action film lives or dies based on how good its action scenes are. And since The Tomorrow War doesn’t feature a lot of close-up, hand-to-hand action, the VFX work has to make the countless scenes of actors shooting guns at CGI monsters dynamic. And it easily accomplishes this. The Whitespikes are really creepy. They’re kind of a mixture of different alien designs and Kaiju designs. They’re these pale white, oddly angular monsters with big teeth and projectile spikes. And they are revolting in the best way.

You’d think it might get boring watching humans shoot at CGI monsters, but McKay and the VFX team come up with some pretty creative ways for the Whitespikes to fight against the humans. So many, in fact, that it’s easy to see how they’ve overpowered the humans. It’s so much fun watching the Whitespikes maneuver their way around fights. There’s a strategy to what they’re doing, something that makes them feel a little bit more intelligent than the average monster might. Everything about them contributes to the effectiveness of the action, and it’s impressive how well they’re realized. If the CGI work was any less believable, I don’t think this movie would work half as well as it does.

KEITH POWERS and YVONNE STRAHOVSKI stars in THE TOMORROW WAR. Courtesy of Amazon Prime Video

Characters (Slight Spoilers)

To be honest, I was a bit surprised by how drawn I felt to these characters – particularly Dan, his father, James (J.K. Simmons), and [SPOILER] his daughter, Colonel Muri (Yvonne Strahovski). I think I’m just rather fond of stories about families and what a parent is willing to do for their child. Pratt delivers an exceedingly earnest performance. His relationship with his family in 2022 is sweet, but it’s his relationship with Adult Muri in 2051 that shines. Pratt and Strahovski have a great rapport with each other. Their relationship is immediately believable and well explored. It’s emotional seeing Strahovski’s Muri deal with knowing about her father’s future while talking to a version of her father that hasn’t lived that future. Can she change what’s already happened between the two of them by just telling him it’s happened? Or does that knowledge doom them?

The emotional core of the film revolves around parents’ relationships with their children. Dan wants to be a better father to Muri than James was to him. But to do so, he’s gonna have to reconcile things with James – a feat that’s easier said than done. J.K. Simmons isn’t in this movie anywhere near enough, but he does steal every scene he’s in. His dynamic with Pratt is exactly as prickly as you’d want it to be, but he’s given plenty of moments to make you laugh. He’s immensely fun to watch.

The rest of the cast are equally good – I mean, this film has Betty Gilpin, Sam Richardson, and Edwin Hodge in it. But none of them get quite enough screen time to stand out much. It’s clear where the film’s focus is, and those characters aren’t the focus. But given how well it executes the James/Dan/Muri storylines, I’m perfectly fine with that.

Final Thoughts

Overall, The Tomorrow War is a pretty average action film that’s buoyed by solid directing, an incredibly game cast, some cool sci-fi concepts, and a lot of excellent and well-paced action sequences. I don’t think it’s destined to make anyone’s list of the best action movies – or even a list of the best sci-fi action movies. But for what it’s going for, it’s a really good time. It’s a shame that Paramount sold the movie to Amazon Studios because I think this is the kind of movie best served by watching it in a nice theater, surrounded by people who are ready to eat up what the movie’s offering. Regardless, if you’re drawn to these kinds of big, bombastic action movies, you could do a lot worse than The Tomorrow War.

The Tomorrow War is streaming on Amazon Prime Video now.