The Tomorrow War

Gillipedia Official Rating: Take it from me, don’t think about this movie, and you’ll enjoy it just fine

          Okay, so let’s think about this. For whatever reason, present day is 2022. Why not make it present day… in 2021? That would also give you a clean 30 year time jump because the future takes place in 2051. But I’m getting ahead of myself. This Amazon Prime exclusive film is advertised as a big blockbuster as they compete with Netflix to throw millions upon millions of dollars into production costs. The story is that soldiers from the future travel back and interrupt a soccer match—presumably the FIFA World Cup since it’s 2022—and talk of peace and prosperity to come and there’s no worries or a care in the world. Just kidding, it’s actually just impending doom stuff. They're losing a war against an alien race, and they created a machine that travels back and forth between their present time and 2022 in the hopes of recruiting humanity to help in the… tomorrow war.

          As for the very opening of the movie, it literally looks like the first draft to Guardians of the Galaxy as Chris Pratt is sucked into the sky in some poor effects and falls down into an apocalyptic city—a prelude to what’s to come 30 minutes from now. I will give props for the fact that the movie sets up the plot and themes relatively quickly so that we can get to the alien butt-kicking action.

          After the future soldiers arrive, we flash forward a couple of months to our hero Pratt teaching high school science. It’s hard to motivate the kids while chaos ensues throughout the world over how to help the future and the fact that nothing matters since the world ends in a couple decades anyways. Pratt soon receives news that he is getting drafted into the tomorrow war, and he heads to their agency without much of a choice. He is paraded around and gets some questions answered, but most soldiers hardly talk to him as they busily conduct tests on him to see if he qualifies for their program. They inform him that people who have already died before the war even started are eligible to be drafted. And very fairly, Pratt is in a frenzy as he learns that he dies in the near future and they respond by not telling him anything about it. Not cool, future peeps.

          So yeah, future dead people are eligible to help the future dying people. They insert a tracking device, and give Pratt 24 hours to get his affairs in order before he’s sent off for training for the war. Once he gets sent over, if he survives for 7 days, he will automatically be sent back to 2022 to resume his life. As far as a drafting process for a desperate war, it seems pretty logical to me. Pratt heads back home and his wife worries about him because the survival rates are close to only 30%, he visits his father played by the great J.K. Simmons that he had previously cut ties with, but most critically, he spends time with his elementary-age daughter. Simmons wasn’t around much for Pratt, so humanity’s survival comes second to Pratt’s motivation of wanting to return so that his daughter has a father.

          Most of the soldiers sent back to 2022 are pretty young, and most draftees are on the older side to help ensure there isn’t crossover in these people having met in the future. Pratt turns out to be a very solid choice as the lead because it has some of the more serious elements of an alien war like Edge of Tomorrow or Battle: Los Angeles, but his draft class buddies are aging, middle class workers, so they are rightfully so assigned to comedic side roles and Pratt is able to add his own flair in with them. Sam Richardson from the show Veep is particularly effective, and Mary Lynn Rajskub from 24 and Brooklyn Nine-Nine rounds it out. There’s also the super serious Dorian now already on his third tour, and once I saw him, I thought to myself that he seemed like a discount Aldis Hodge. Then, the credits rolled around after the film (as they do), and I saw the name Edwin Hodge, so turns out discount Aldis Hodge is actually just his brother.

          Their training gets cut short, and they get thrust into the line of duty. And then some error (never explained) occurs, and the time jump process malfunctions. Instead of a smooth transition, all soldiers are propelled into the river of time and we now return to the opening shot of the film where everyone is falling out of the skies. There’s a neat brutal shot of some people clipping buildings and helplessly falling to their deaths. There’s some tension from the angle of the shot as it looks like Pratt might miss a rooftop pool that he’s aiming to land, but he narrowly gets it. Even though this pool on a good day can’t be more than 12 feet deep and he would still be crushed. Even though after he lands in the pool someone falls in after and rams into him and that should also kill him. Or at least severely concuss him. But he gets out with ease since he’s the hero. Yes, this is a movie about time travel and aliens and I’m over here complaining about a rooftop pool in Miami.

          Pratt receives radio communication from a future colonel, and he takes a leadership role (fair enough, they explain that he led a squad in Afghanistan) in proceeding with their mission. There’s a group of scientists in a nearby building with important vials that they are tasked with retrieving. The following scene is one of the best in the film. In fashion of something like World War Z, 28 Days Later, or even A Quiet Place, genuine tension is created as they try navigating through stairwells in a building knowing full well that aliens are on their tail and they don’t know how powerful these creatures may be.

          A little after this scene, RVs are sent in to the rescue the team. There’s a shot of the team with smiles all around and cheering as the RVs blast into sight. And then the next shot is aliens ramming and destroying the vehicles, and it cuts back to show the shock and disappointment from the team. It feels mindlessly dumb. In this same sequence, there’s also slo-mo shots where director Chris McKay (The Lego Batman Movie) tries to channel his inner Zack Snyder. And I don’t think I give Snyder enough props. He absolutely over uses slow-mo, but it’s undeniable how cinematic and artistically staged the shots are. They’re stylish and excessive, but in this movie it just feels unnecessary.

          Now that you have a decent grip on the early stages of the film, let’s talk plot holes. First and foremost, as Pratt and his daughter (Pratt brat) are watching soccer, he explains to her that those players are the best in the world. I would like to point out that I am not in this film. So this statement is clearly incorrect.

          Here’s something that I’ll give props for and then immediately take back. Props: in the beginning they do a decent job of explaining things. Like, someone asks why not send the 2022 people to say 2048 before the war starts and warn everyone then. But they describe the flow of time as like a constantly flowing river, so they can send people back the 30 years, but time is still moving forward in that timeline as well as the present 2051 year where they’ve nearly lost the war. Doesn’t explain the fact that it brings them back to 2022 for whatever reason, but that’s okay. But one thing I wanted to give props for was a conversation about how the people being drafted are all dead by the time the youngling soldiers are born so that they don’t know each other. But they quickly break that rule after they jump forward into the war.

          The week timeline works logistically, but they don’t know how to use it properly at all. Pratt teams up with the colonel in the future in trying to find a way to beat the aliens. They find a possible serum, but they have to test hundreds of iterations to find the right mixture that will be effective against the aliens. Which the colonel single-handedly undertakes. They explain that she has a degree from I think MIT in genetic research, but I don’t believe that it’s nearly enough time. Or that only one person would be working on the testing.

          And probably the biggest plot hole I thought of is this. So the alien war has been going on for a couple years by the time the movie rolls around. That means that they were able to create a machine for time travel. But in the time it took to build this machine, you’re telling me they couldn’t find a viable solution against the aliens? One that Pratt by the way ends up helping discover in under a week’s time? I will have none of it. None of it I tell you!

          Let’s talk extra-terrestrial. The best effects are for the aliens. Yes, they’re too much of a grey-scale color, but they’re a decent mix of cool and frightening. Although I’m also not convinced that they are capable of wiping humanity out. Like if you make a noise in A Quiet Place, uh, yuh dead. But I digress. As for the rest of the effects, they’re passable. Like if this was 2013, the effects would even look good. But as it stands, the green screen usage is iffy. Speaking as the designated expert, I think the issue is the fact that you have the real elements, and then you distinctly have fake elements. And they don’t blend well. I’ll give 2 examples of where it worked extremely well. 1917 won the Oscar for visual effects. Yes, it has the whole single shot feel to it, but it’s a realistic war film. Where are the effects? All over, actually. But the visual effect assets are photorealistic and blend right into the shot that you don’t give them a second thought ever, and that’s why it won the Oscar. Something you can compare to more would be The Mandalorian. That show is a trailblazer in projecting the visual backgrounds and lighting right on set. But in order to achieve this, in the foreground they still have real props that they match up, so you can never tell where the real stuff ends and where the fake stuff begins.

          If you’re expecting a thriller that makes you think like a Christopher Nolan film, you might be disappointed. But if you’re looking for a neat sci-fi concept with a mix of action and comedy more like Edge of Tomorrow, you’ll enjoy yourself. It’s not as good and the plot isn’t as sound, but this film is still entertaining. It still feels like it’s a third or fourth draft of a script, and not quite a final draft where it all comes together seamlessly. But if you shut your mind off and enjoy the movie for what it is, it’s entertaining! And if you have Prime, you get to stream this blockbuster for free. So treat yourself to some Pratt, aliens, and a care-free good time.

 

In Brief:

• I just watched Black Widow. -Sigh- Oh how wonderful you are, Scarlett Johansson. Great cast, decent action. It’s a fitting story and film overall. Not perfect or exactly a standout Marvel film, but it’s pretty good.
• What I’m considering for my next review: A Stephen King classic with lots of heart and an engrossing cast.