The Tomorrow War: Perfectly Watchable

To get controversial, the more I read about Chris Pratt, the more I like him. Whatever you think of his personal beliefs, I respect the man for not kowtowing to a culture that would rather hear their opinions begrudgingly repeated back to them on a chat forum than so much as, gasp, go outside and talk to someone. To get really controversial, Pratt has been treated by the left in the same way that someone like Rachel Zegler has been by the right, and I will never for the life of me understand why or how anyone would think it a good idea to make their cortisol surge by posting a hateful comment Pratt or Zegler will never see. To get off my soapbox, The Tomorrow War was wildly successful as far as Amazon Originals are concerned, and a more innocent part of me is glad that the real-world troubles of our very divided culture don't touch this fantasy unless you allow them to.

In essence, The Tomorrow War is a story about humans from the future - soldiers - time-traveling back to the present day with the stated purpose of conscription. In the year 2051, the world is losing a war against a vicious, animalistic alien race called the Whitespikes, the type of outsider that we've seen attack Earth time and again from the comfort of our own living rooms. So, who better to spearhead this latest coat of paint than an actor who's supposed to make a billion bucks for the studio no matter what he's in? Chris Pratt may not have the range of someone like Robert Pattinson or the intensity of someone like Brad Pitt, but he remains ridiculously charismatic and endlessly watchable, and his work here as himse- I mean, male lead Dan Forester, is magnetic, elevating an otherwise derivative story to levels it might not completely deserve. Don't get me wrong, the premise of a war in the future is cool on paper, but The Tomorrow War can't get away from looking and feeling like the microwaved leftovers of other science fiction films.

Nevertheless, it still manages to taste good more often than not. The White Spikes hover over the first half of this movie like an unseen yet undoubtedly dark cloud, and this movie teaches us to fear them before we even make the jump into the future with Dan. We see the artificial limbs. We see the disheartening statistics. We hear the stories about how terrible they are to look at, how much worse they are to listen to. The stories lay an ominous groundwork for the rest of the movie, and to put it plainly, they hooked me. The Tomorrow War does a suspenseful and spectacular job of hiding its monsters for as long as necessary and even longer, and they're most terrifying not when seen, but rather when talked about. Because, unfortunately, once the White Spikes make themselves at loud, destructive home, they become little more than an all-too-familiar excuse for humans and aliens to kill each other in ways that are anything but original, and for as much as they were talked up to me, I was let down on some level. 

Speaking of levels, the level at which the scale of The Tomorrow War functions is much too large, not because of a strict imbalance between spectacle and drama, but rather because this movie plainly and simply tries to do too much. It tries to visit too many places, meet too many people, and do too many things, and ends up feeling incredibly crowded because of its scattershot prioritization. It's ultimately a bit frustrating that this movie is so big and so familiar, equally so that The Tomorrow War has to end said war in a little less than two hours. Its story would have likely been better served as a miniseries, and its scale and aspirations are both wildly out of proportion with its limitations as a movie. Nevertheless, between its occasionally effective suspense and familiar yet magnetic acting by Pratt, it works more often than it doesn't. I'm a happy reviewer when I get to say that about a film that's not really trying to be anything more.

When you strip away the skin and look at the working parts of this movie, it's pretty silly stuff. Still, The Tomorrow War is an afternoon well spent in most every honest-to-goodness way, and it does just enough to make its derivative premise go just a tad further than it should; as it turns out, just far enough. It's fairly standard stuff as far as sci-fi actioners go, but between some patiently building suspense and a solid performance from Chris Pratt that anchors all of its less-desirable tendencies down, The Tomorrow War is a mild success. Nevertheless, it remains regrettable that this movie is so big and so familiar. It's sensory overload targeted at the middle class, the type of story that would have been served in far better ways by the miniseries format, and an additional touch or two of creativity would have made it occasionally feel like something more than the cinematic equivalent of economy class. Still, in its briefest and best moments, The Tomorrow War sometimes flies.

The Tomorrow War - 6/10

Matthew 6:31-34