The Tomorrow War (2021 | USA | 140 minutes | Chris McKay)
I wish I could go back in time to stop myself from watching The Tomorrow War. Better yet, I wish I could go back in time to stop the film itself from existing. At the very least, going back to change almost every decision involved in the production of this film would be the only way to save it. It is tepid and tacky science fiction that as I reflect on it more, the more I find myself completely losing sight of any redeeming qualities.
Chris Pratt’s Dan Forester is a loving family man and science teacher who is hoping to get a better job. When he is turned down for the position for not having enough “private sector experience,” he reflects on how he needs to do something to prove himself worthy of future jobs. As if on cue, a group of time traveling soldiers interrupt a broadcast of a soccer match by bursting onto the field to inform the world that alien monsters will attack so they must prepare to send soldiers into the future to save our present.
A draft is instituted and Dan is selected, meaning his wife Emmy (Betty Gilpin) and daughter Muri (Ryan Kiera Armstrong) will have to watch their father go into the future with the immense uncertainty about whether he will return. The film initially indicates some deeper reflections on how a draft like this would be rolled out and who specifically would be chosen to bear the brunt of the weight of conflict. It seemed to gesture at possibly breaking down how the burden of war is falling on a specific subset of the population, though that soon is waved away with half baked sciencey sounding explanations before zipping along to the main focus of the film.
That is because The Tomorrow War is an attempt, a poor one, at making a science fiction action-adventure flick that jettisons all other potentially compelling elements for this central conceit. That is not in itself a bad thing, though it requires actually having an exciting action film.The Tomorrow War’s fatal flaw is that it is utterly overblown and bloated. Despite having no business being over two hours, the film runs through plodding action sequence after action sequence where characters have to go get a thing to do another thing and it all just becomes increasingly tiresome. There were multiple moments where I thought the ordeal was over only to realize that the film was not even halfway done. It was mind numbingly maddening.
The premise itself could have been tightened into a solid enough action romp. Sending a group of soldiers, some of whom are way out of their depth, into the future for seven days to fight aliens? Fine, right on. Go for it. This could be a fun time. Instead, the story feels as though it is being made up as it goes along. The initial mission goes terribly wrong and drops Forester into the future thousands of feet above the ground, wiping out a majority of his team who fall to their death. The only reason some survive is they land in a pool on top of a skyscraper. Good, stakes are established. Throwing your characters into an immediately dire situation offers a promising start. Not only are they up against the odds, they have already experienced heavy losses.
Almost immediately, the tension and potential excitement is deflated. The characters get caught up in chasing down one plot device after another in equally mundane action setpiece after action setpiece that barely hold the tenuous story together. The alien monsters known as the White Spikes, named because … well … they can shoot white spikes at you, become just an indistinguishable horde. The monsters’ design is initially unique, though only believable at a distance. It all makes for increasingly vacuous action scenes without any sense of believability as it becomes clear that characters are immune as long as the plot needs them to be. The monsters only feel threatening to side characters since the main characters are obviously shielded by plot armor.
Anytime you get too close to a monster or they interact with a character, the seams of the visual effects begin to show. When the alien presence was limited to a sound reminiscent of the Cloverfield Monster, it creates a degree of suspense. Unfortunately, the intrigue stops when you get a full look at them and the main characters are left to fire endlessly without any sense of real danger. It is really tough to feel any sense of connection or engagement to these developments, even when schmaltzy reveals strain to instill Pratt’s character with some emotional material.
That is another problem. Forester as a character is incredibly flat. A joke is made about how his backstory is a “long story” that he actually is able to tell in a single sentence. The joke unintentionally reveals how he should have either been given more development or been part of an ensemble. The fact that he acknowledges how little there is to him as a person when talking to Sam Richardson’s far more interesting fellow soldier Charlie only makes his own blandness all the more disappointing. There is almost nothing to Forester to identify that could make him a potentially compelling person to lead this story. He has a loving family, doesn’t like his father James (J.K. Simmons) much, and really wants to be given a better job. That is about it.
When stacked up against some of the more interesting side characters, it is a wonder why this is our main character. Richardson is standing right there and steals every scene with the only genuine moments of humor that consistently land, before subsequently taking a large leave of absence from the screen. He does return, though at a point when it is far too late to save the film. If he left the set to go make the far superior film Werewolves Within, then that was a necessary loss. Still, his absence leaves the film completely aimless, leaving nothing but generic hero action man and his journey. When the focus shifts to being all about this man and his family drama, including an appearance of a character from the past, it never takes hold of the emotions.
Part of this may be that Pratt himself is not good in this movie. He is expected to carry the film and hit some serious notes, but he is not up to the challenge. The extent of his acting decisions amount to adopting a slightly furrowed brow and somber tone. You know, so you remember this is supposed to be a serious scene amongst an utterly ridiculous monster movie. Some of this falls on the writing as there are moments where Pratt must monologue to explain exactly what is going on with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer. The monologues sound like screenwriter notes that slipped into the story, creating unintentional humor only in how on-the-nose they sound.
There may be a sliver of a compelling core to The Tomorrow War, though it gets drowned out by the cacophony of the rest of the film’s excesses. At multiple natural narrative ending points, the undisciplined story painfully attempts to ramp back up, feeling unaware of just how dreadfully long the film is becoming. When your film has forty minutes left and nowhere to go, perhaps it is time to just call it quits. That could have been said before the film even went into production, though the ending is where this lack of vision is most evident. Even if you had been locked in until then, the film seems hellbent on wearing you down by its conclusion. The Tomorrow War just keeps going and going. Whether there is anything actually engaging left to do exists only as an afterthought to the mindless malaise of this mess of a movie.
The Tomorrow War is on Amazon Prime on July 2.