JULY 30, 2021, KEIZERTIMES, PAGE A11
Tomorrow War proves to be underwhelming
Chris Pratt stars in The Tomorrow War, now available on Amazon Prime.
By TJ REID
For the Keizertimes
I was actually pretty excited to finally
sit down and watch The Tomorrow War for
two reasons: One, it is a big budget sci-fi
movie starring Hollywood’s fourth favor-
ite Chris (the Pratt one), and two, it was
originally set to release in the theaters
before the pandemic hit and therefore
had a pretty decent chance of breaking
the subpar-action-movie-made-exclusive-
ly-for-a-streaming-service streak that I
am currently stuck in.
I wasn’t expecting art, of course,
just a stupid good time watching Andy
Dwyer shoot up some aliens. But it turns
out there was a pretty good reason that
Paramount sold the movie to Amazon
Prime: It’s, well, not great.
Well-acted and occasionally pretty
cool to look at, The Tomorrow War is also
Review
shoddily written, clichéd, and about 30
minutes too long.
For a sci-fi action movie, the acting is
actually pretty decent and goes a long
way in elevating what otherwise might
have been straight crap to acceptably
watchable levels. Chris Pratt, Yvonne
Strahovski, J.K. Simmons, and Betty
Gilpin all do the best that they can with
the middling script, earning their pay-
checks well by making silly lines sound
natural and plausible (I was not a fan
of the comic relief character, but I don’t
want to single him out by name—wasn’t
Amazon Prime
his fault his lines were dumb).
The CGI is also respectable, if not
great—I was, for some reason, occasion-
ally (and keenly) reminded that I was
watching actors fight things that weren’t
really there. Maybe it was the chaotic
alien design, maybe it was the lighting—I
don’t know. All I know is that I was forced
to un-suspend my belief once or twice.
This is, in fact, a big problem the
movie has as a whole. As I said, the script
is far from the best and the plot requires
characters to do stupid things left and
right just so it can keep moving forward
(or backwards. Stupid time travel).
Plot holes are plentiful and gaping,
even more so than in other films of this
genre, and there are so many convenient
and contrived coincidences that I wanted
to laugh out loud at several points. Need
a volcano expert?
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Well, what about that random student
from earlier in the movie who randomly
loves volcanoes? Need a plane to Russia?
Wait—your dad is a pilot, isn’t he? And
he just happens to have a disdain for
the government? Oh cool, that’s a lucky
break! Come on, movie… I am only one
man, and I only have so much belief that
I can suspend.
And when The Tomorrow War isn’t giv-
ing the middle finger to logic it wallows
in cliché, from an unnecessary amount
of slow motion shots (I swear this movie
could have been 10 minutes shorter if the
director kept the camera rolling at a nor-
mal speed) to tired character archetypes
(the gruff and distant dad, the black best
friend/comic relief, the suicidal hardass
army guy).
None of it feels terribly original from
start to finish, and certain plot points and
even lines can be accurately guessed long
in advance. If you read a basic outline of
the very beginning of the film you can
probably guess everything that happens.
Is The Tomorrow War terrible? Not
really, despite all of the things I’ve griped
on. It’s just far from good, which is a darn
shame. The streak will have to be broken
another time.
Time. Get it?
The Tomorrow War is now available on
Amazon Prime.
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