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The Tomorrow War
2021
12A
Director: Chris McKay
Starring: Chris Pratt, Yvonne Strahovski, JK Simmons, Betty Gilpin, Sam Richardson, Jasmine Mathews, Edwin Hodge etc
The World is stunned when a group of time travellers 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. This film was very mediocre, and the definition of a stupid, dumb, and fun blockbuster.
My first few positives would be the fantastic cinematography, the chemistry between the cast. A fun set up, the characters were established well, as well as some interesting worldbuilding elements and character conflict. This movie visually was fantastic, it had a high budget, and it was used effectively, the film truly popped visually with realistic looking action scenes, amazing use of colour, and some creative shots involving the aliens that built tension well and the scope of the film was tremendous. I also liked the chemistry between the cast. The connection between Chris Pratt, Betty Gilpin and Ryan Armstrong was charming and believable making you connect with there characters very easily, and Chris Pratt is the kind of actor who has great chemistry with whoever he works with, and this was no different. He had great chemistry with the whole cast, and they all worked really well together. I thought the set up and establishing of the characters was excellent, the film did a good job at building the characters up, establishing their lives, and how they are as people. Making it seem like a normal day to setting and life for all the characters, so the set up of the time travellers was a lot of fun. Having a big get together to watch the football felt normal, and to have people from the future suddenly appear on the pitch was a fun surprise and a clever way to set up the main plot points. I thought the film had some interesting worldbuilding moments that they set up with the rules of the story world and how to go into the future. These weren’t executed well (more of this shortly) but they at least set up a lot of interesting things on the different processes into how they travel into the future and how long they can be there for. With an interesting and fascinating selection process where they had to be dead before 2051 in order to be chosen which was interesting and set up some development for the main character, and the conflict that went with this as so many people didn’t come back alive and contemplating whether the characters should even be trying was also handled well and in a decent amount of detail.
My first few negatives would be the rushed pacing, lack of explanation to plot points. The extreme amount of plot holes, as well as the forced humour and use of exposition. This film’s pacing and structure was an absolute mess. It rushed through everything that shouldn’t have been rushed. Jumping from one scene to the next without an ounce of thought into developing the scenes. There was also a complete lack of explanation to so many scenes. It was a bunch of set up ideas that were never developed or explained properly the film just expected you to keep up. It was confusing and muddled, they rushed explanations into the process of teleporting and how it all worked and was messily written. There were also countless plot holes, there was so many plot points that either weren’t explained or even mentioned when it was obvious that it needed to be developed. Or just plot points that were introduced and then never talked about again or changed as the movie went on. There were also parts that simply didn’t make sense and logically even for a film like this felt out of place. The script was also very poor. The humour was very forced and clunky, the jokes never landed and were honestly awkward to watch. The film also completely overelied on exposition. Completely relying on spoon feeding and long unneeded moments of dialogue to explain everything instead of through the action of the film which would have made it more enjoyable and still achieved the same thing.
My final few positives would be the performances, great character motivation and depth. The great development to the plot, plot twists and emotional weight. As well as the fun final act. Chris Pratt delivered a great performance here; he is great lead role material. He delivered as expected with the action scenes, as well as having loads of charm and charisma, whilst also delivering in the more emotional and personal scenes as well which was a nice surprise. The performance from Yvonne Strahovski was also very strong here, she had excellent chemistry with Chris Pratt and showed and gave a lot of emotional depth to her character. I also really liked the motivation for a lot of the characters and why they wanted to fight, in particular with the character of Dorian (Edwin Hodge) who I thought was a very interesting character and his reasoning for fighting multiple times due to his battle with cancer and not wanting to be stuck living the rest of his days doing nothing was interesting. I also really liked the character depth and emotional weight to the film. I really liked the relationship between Dan and Muri as well as his relationship with his father. Having his father abandon him as a young child and him not having a father figure in his life really impacted his character and his relationship with his daughter. So, having the colonel in the future be the older version of his daughter was a really interesting element to the film. And learning that he left his wife and daughter in the future added a lot of depth and emotion to there characters as their relationship developed. I also loved the development to the plot and the plot twists. The part of the film that I am classing as the final act was great. It developed and built tension excellently as the threat of the aliens increased. I thought the twists involving where the aliens were situated in the present as well as the increased stakes of Dan bringing back a cure to stop the future war from happening was an unexpected twist to the film that definitely made it more interesting in parts. Plus, the final action set piece was fantastic and thrilling.
My final few negatives would be the tonal imbalances, odd character decisions. Poor dialogue. And the messy and unneeded final act and ending. This film didn’t know what tone it wanted to go for. At first it was a sci fi drama. And then it morphed into an action/disaster film and it tried to add too much. It felt tonally unfocused and it really didn’t work for me. I liked it at its best as an action/ disaster film with hints of horror. I thought the film also had odd character decisions. The film made it really hard to tell who to support in places. Characters either made harsh decisions, or where incredibly dumb just for the sake of an extended action scene that didn’t need it. The dialogue here was also poor and held the film back from the depth that it could have had with its characters. Generic and corny lines, awkward and clunky conversations. It was just often very robotic or too by the books and it really showed the films weaknesses with its writing. One of my biggest issues with the film has to be the ending. The film should have ended with the last big action piece and Dan getting back to present day and end on the twist of the location of the aliens. Instead, the film kept going and going. It felt like another half of a film and a completely different film compared to all of the other acts. It was sloppy, poorly written, and unneeded. What baffles me is that they plan to do a sequel which I really don’t understand how considering they wrapped everything up with this film.
Overall, The Tomorrow War is admittedly very entertaining and fun in places, and if you switch your brain off you can have a good time with it. Plus, Chris Pratt is a great lead actor. But the film was so poorly written it couldn’t fully justify or explain its complex plot. Leading to a messy, poorly structured train wreck that ended on a sour note.
Overall rating 48/100
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Futuristic sci-fi flick has a cool premise at the center of its plot — but the uneven pacing pervading the first two acts slows down what should be a surge of storytelling. It’s a shame because the phenomenal final act has a sense of urgency and realism the previous section was lacking.
Chris Pratt’s relatability as the protagonist helps sell the idea of his transformation into a soldier, but his character could’ve used some further development. Feels like the focus was much more on visual effects and pulling off set pieces, which is all well and good — however, if I was able to know the characters better it would make me care more and give it more replay value.
Sam Richardson steals the film with uncanny comic timing — every time he’s on screen the movie gets better, fueled by his elevation of the dialogue with brilliantly subtle reactions and delivery.
The film’s unnecessarily long 2 hr 18 min runtime makes it feel bloated, lacking the sharpness it needed and limiting its effectiveness. If it had substance to spare and a good balance between story and visuals, the length would feel justified. As it is, it needed more editing.
Still functions on an entertaining level, but not as memorable as it could have been, with its potential far outweighing its potency.
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