The Tomorrow War (2021)

The Tomorrow War

By Calum Whitfield

Cool-looking aliens and Chris Pratt can’t make up for generic action and a weak plot in this weak Sci-Fi actioner.

• 2/5 Cameras 🎥🎥
• Directed by: Chris McKay
• Starring: Chris Pratt, Yvonne Strahovski, J.K. Simmons, and Sam Richards
• Where to find it: Amazon Prime Video

 

No Copyright Infringement Intended

A time-travel action sci-fi film where mankind must fight off an enemy seemingly well beyond our capabilities. No, I’m not talking about The Terminator franchise. Or the latest Avengers movie. Or Edge of Tomorrow. Or indeed any of the many other films that fit this or a similar description. But is this one any good?

The film follows Chris Pratt as Dan, a science teacher and former soldier living a cushy suburban life with his wife and daughter who wants to do something different with his life. Fortunately for him, during the World Cup soldiers from the future arrive desperate for help as by 2051 mankind is close to extinction due to an onslaught from aliens known as Whitespikes. As a result, the world decides to work together to assist, by sending as many soldiers as they can through to the future to join the fight, eventually drafting in civilians as soldiers begin to run out. Dan eventually gets called up as part of this draft and is sent for a seven-day tour of the future to fight the Whitespikes.

I’ll start with some positives; I love the design of the Whitespikes. While probably not wholly unique, they look suitably intimidating and have an interesting way of attacking through built-in dart guns firing some nasty-looking spikes at their foes. Also, Chris Pratt is a solid leading man who does a solid enough job with the material he has, and there is a fun supporting role for J.K. Simmons as Dan’s estranged father.

Beyond these lights though, this film really is lacking in any kind of spark. In my opinion, time travel is one of storytelling’s great mistakes, very rarely being executed to such a degree that the glaring plot holes it causes deserve to be overlooked; this is a film that epitomises that viewpoint. Quite why anyone thought the smart thing to do when the full international military might of the world in 2048 had been soundly defeated was to send the presumably less well-equipped military of 2022 I haven’t figured out. That they then started sending in civilians with no military experience and barely any training I find almost insulting. And this is before we get to one of the most contrived and stupid plot twists I’ve seen in a while. I won’t spoil it here, but I will say that I cringed throughout the whole reveal.

The ending of the film is something I would also question. The film seems to wrap itself about half an hour before it actually ends, with this final half-hour feeling like it’s been tacked on from another movie, granted a more entertaining if still painfully dumb one (For example, our heroes track down a schoolboy to answer a simple question Google could have answered in seconds), but at least the actions scenes here are a little less bland and the characters on show display a little more chemistry. Is it worth the pain of the first three-quarters of the movie? Not at all, but it does rather soften the blow.

In conclusion, The Tomorrow War is not a good movie. The action is mostly quite watchable, if fairly uninspired, but the nonsensical plot and numerous weak supporting characters leave it as a film that at a glance is bland, and when given any thought is outright bad. Do yourself a favour and re-watch Edge of Tomorrow instead.