In The Tomorrow War, Chris Pratt is on a mission to save the world that involves the people of today being drafted to fight a war against aliens 30 years in the future. No, it’s not like The Terminator in reverse. The Amazon Studios flick features Pratt as Dan Forester, a schoolteacher with a special forces past that makes him the ideal candidate to “jump” to the future.
The truth is that the war is not going very well and not many of those who head forward three decades don’t make it home when their “tour” is over.
Pratt is a married (to Betty Gilpin’s Emmy) father to a little girl (Ryan Kiera Armstrong’s Muri)—who is the apple of her father’s eye—and when his number is called, he has no problems heading to what appears to be a lost future. See, when things get tough, he always brings it back to Muri and what kind of world he and Emmy are leaving for her. If there is no world, what is the point?
When Forester arrives in the future, it’s as bleak as one has been led to believe. There, he meets a brilliant scientist, who goes by the moniker of Romeo Command (Yvonne Strahovski). She is well versed in the physiology of the aliens. But the thing that puzzles her and is one of the mysteries at the heart of the story, is exactly how the aliens arrived. There was no touchdown, no spaceships launching an invasion. Besides her providing intelligence on how to kill those pests, she and Forester share a passion for science and with his military skills, perhaps there is a chance.
Besides running a little long, The Tomorrow War is a surprisingly fun summer action flick. Pratt is right in his element and adds another character to his resume that he puts his unique stamp on in a way that is pitch-perfect for the overall arc of the narrative laid out on the pages of Zach Dean’s screenplay. Director Chris McKay (The Lego Batman Movie) makes his live-action debut and literally puts the action in that entity. The behind the scenes team has done extraordinary work on two fronts.
First, the future production design is firmly what it should be. Too often films view the future as something that is beyond our reach—making that suspension of disbelief a challenge. This feels like our (tattered) world of 30 years from now.
They also did a stellar job with the creature design of the aliens. At this point in time, audiences have seen it all. There are a myriad of aliens that run the gamut in Hollywood history and coming up with something distinctive seems to be the biggest of challenges. That is absolutely not the case with The Tomorrow War’s extraterrestrials.
The supporting cast is solid, except for one issue. Oscar-winner J.K. Simmons plays Pratt’s father James Forester, and besides being incredibly jacked, resists the temptation to chew the scenery with his character. There is a rift between father and son, and nothing brings a parent and child together like figuring out ways to wipe out aliens and save the world. Sam Richardson, who recently wowed us in Werewolves Within, is fantastic as Charlie, a military cohort of Pratt’s. Keep an eye on this actor, he continues to impress.
Our supporting cast issue is with Gilpin’s wife character. She is hardly developed and despite having an actress with major mettle—she has three Emmy nominations for her work on Netflix’s Glow—the character never goes beyond the waiting-at-home wife stereotypical soul that we’ve seen a million times.
Strahovski does something that—like those alien designs—that bucks Hollywood history. Too often someone is given a role that is a stretch, looking at you Denise Richards as a nuclear scientist in the James Bond flick The World is Not Enough. Heck, casting actors who are clearly in their 30s as high school kids come to mind as well.
Through the script that shaped her character and gives her the lines that define who she is on a number of levels, plus her killer performance, it is absolutely believable that someone so young could be so versed in the science that may hold the key to saving humankind.
The Tomorrow War is a fascinating entity. It’s the epitome of a popcorn/summer blockbuster action flick. Yet, the sci-fi/actioner will be only available on the streaming giant and will never find its way into theaters—even as audiences return post-Covid. This is exclusive to Amazon and is the embodiment of the shifting dynamic in film releases.
Whereas Daniel Craig’s final go-around as Bond in No Time to Die kept getting punted down the road waiting for that theatrical window to open, this film was never going to be for theater audiences. This is a big-budget, summer spectacle that doesn’t lose a thing not being on a big screen. With people’s entertainment set-ups today—what with a huge TV and advanced audio—I never once felt like, “I wish I had seen this in a theater.”
This is the future. Yes, Covid changed things in terms of release strategy and that is fine. Bond can have its big theatrical 3,000 screen release and so too can F9 and The Green Knight. What The Tomorrow War proves is that if a story and a cast entertain fully, the form of delivery of the thrills does not matter.
Theaters aren’t going anywhere. There is nothing like seeing a film and sharing that experience with a packed house as you all sit in the dark and collectively experience the hard work of hundreds of folks. But… if Amazon wants to invest in what used to solely be thought of as popcorn fare and delivers it in a manner that is entertaining and takes your mind off the world’s issues for two hours, then lucky us.
Grade: B