The Tomorrow War – Film Review

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 a high school teacher and family man named Dan Forester (Chris Pratt). Determined to save the world for his young daughter, Dan teams up with a brilliant scientist and his estranged father in a desperate quest to rewrite the fate of the planet.

The moment Chris McKay‘s The Tomorrow War kicks off, I knew I was about to watch a science-fiction film like none I had ever seen before. Thankfully, that gut feeling was right. Virtually every scene feels meticulously crafted and well-planned. Some scenes early on may have you scratching your head, wondering why they are important or why they were included in this story in the first place, but once you see the direction the film takes, you’ll get a better understanding of why.

Screenwriter Zach Dean takes this bold and daring story to extremely impressive heights. I can’t honestly say that I have seen a movie quite like The Tomorrow War, either – it has a completely original concept that reeled me in the moment the film started. There’s always a feeling of urgency lingering throughout this story. Even in sequences that are meant to be more comedic in nature, there always feels like there is some sort of impending doom on the horizon that the film’s main team needs to get to the bottom to if they really want to save the world – or more accurately – save the future.

The Tomorrow War is an exciting blend of action, science-fiction, thriller, and a straight-up monster invasion movie all rolled into one, and surprisingly, it never feels jarring and there isn’t a tonal clash either, despite the fact that the movie can be genuinely hilarious at times. There’s plenty of scenes where Chris Pratt’s character Dan Forester and the rest of his crew go into battle and shoot down hundreds upon hundreds of alien creatures featuring some of the most impressive action set pieces I have seen in a while, and the next, we will get a scene where we can breathe for a moment.

Maybe Forester will sit down with one of his fellow crew members and tell a story to him or they’ll talk to each other about their home life and tell jokes. It’s moments like these that make The Tomorrow War stand out amongst the crowd of other sci-fi action films – it has a sense of heart and warmth to it.

I never would have thought that a movie featuring time-traveling super-soldiers and creepy alien creatures would get me in my feelings but sure enough, The Tomorrow War did. One minute you’ll be smiling upon watching all of the bloody carnage unfolding before your very eyes, and the next, you’ll be holding back tears.

This next point I’m going to make may not make a lot of sense to some of you but I’m going to bring it up anyway because I can’t get it out of my head. The Tomorrow War feels like one of those movies that you’d watch as a kid when you were staying home sick from school because you thought the poster looked cool and you end up really enjoying it. It’s kind of a strange description, I know, but this movie felt like one of those movies I’d watch as a kid when I was sick from school and needed a pick-me-up.

Courtesy of Amazon Studios

Chris Pratt takes center stage here as mentioned earlier, and I’m glad they decided to go with him as opposed to any other potential action star. Maybe they could have gotten Dwayne Johnson, but I genuinely think that Pratt was the best choice they could have gone with for the character of Dan Forester.

Whether or not you like Pratt in real-life as a person, it’s hard to deny just how charming and energetic he is as an actor. This movie perfectly showcases all of Pratt’s wonderful acting capabilities, but it also doesn’t make him the only important character of this particular story.

One of the film’s most major players is the character of Muri Forester – Dan’s daughter – portrayed by Yvonne Strahovski. If I started to explain why she is so important to the story, then it would definitely divulge into spoiler territory so I won’t do that. But I will say that the dynamic that Dan and Muri share in this film was equal parts touching and heartbreaking.

Plus, how can you go wrong with J.K. Simmons as a relentless soldier who won’t let anything stand in his way? He isn’t in the movie for too long but when he is, it’s certainly a blast. It is definitely a shame that some of the side characters don’t get as much to do, though, such as Betty Gilpin as Emmy Forester, Dan’s wife.

What does her character do in this film? Honestly, kind of nothing. She practically just serves as Dan’s wife and doesn’t get much development if any in this story which was certainly disappointing. Gilpin is a criminally underrated actress and I was hoping she would’ve gotten a meatier role to further prove her acting capabilities here, but sadly, that wasn’t the case.

Also, the film can feel way too long at times. It runs at a total of two hours and eighteen minutes in length and there are a couple of scenes that either go on for far too long and even some scenes that could have been removed from the film entirely, and the story would have been the exact same.

All in all, though, The Tomorrow War is an exceptionally fun and original science-fiction blockbuster that is sure to entertain most viewers. It’s not one of the best movies of the year and it’s not going to be a game-changer, but it’s undeniably thrilling, funny, and heartfelt. It’s the kind of movie I wish was released in theatres so I could’ve gotten the whole experience with a crowd. But even at home, it’s a ton of fun.