The guitar will be auctioned on May 29 at the Hard Rock Cafe in New York
Summer sci-fi spectacles like this — a sprawling, slightly sloppy, sometimes serious, often knowingly ridiculous extravaganza — aren't quite the regular commodity they once were. The Tomorrow War isn't as silly as Will Smith's Independence Day, but, just the same, it's Chris Pratt's chance to punch some aliens.
Pratt, star and executive producer of The Tomorrow War, used his box-office muscle to push forward the film, directed by Chris McKay and scripted by Zach Dean. Originally intended for theaters, McKay's film got sucked into a future shock of its own during the pandemic and was sold to Amazon. It is streaming now on Prime Video. The Tomorrow War is by no means the first popcorn movie to go straight to the home, but it's still one of the popcorn-iest.
For those looking for that kind of summer-movie escape, The Tomorrow War should fit the bill. It's tonally scattered and massively implausible. But in movies with aliens, time loops and machine guns, those are more features than bugs.
Pratt stars as Dan Forester, a military veteran turned high-school science teacher. He and his wife, Emmy (Betty Gilpin) have a young daughter named Muri (Ryan Kiera Armstrong). The world, though, gets a rude interruption when, in the middle of a televised soccer game (presumably because The Dark Knight Rises already did cataclysm in a football stadium), a portal opens on the field and out walks futurist soldiers with a message: In 30 years, an alien invasion will consume the world. To defeat the “white spikes,” as the voracious invaders are called, they need help from past. They need to send fresh recruits to the battle through a time link that only goes back and forth from the present to three decades ahead.
Plenty of international rancor and television-news debate follows. This is their war, not ours, some claim. In the foretold, near-future apocalypse there are clear echoes with today's existential distress over climate change. It's a backdrop for countless — maybe all — disaster movies of the last few decades. But The Tomorrow War cleverly couches its planetary metaphor in sci-fi action that culminates, ultimately, in the icy north.
Forester is drafted, implanted with a digital arm band that allows him through the portal. So desperate is the fight that the recruits are both trained military and wide-eyed civilians. His going off to war is portrayed with heartfelt emotion and a sincere sense of sacrifice. In Forester's father (J.K. Simmons), a Vietnam veteran who couldn't readjust to family life after, the toll of soldiering is connected through generations. In the “tomorrow war,” only 30% return, Emmy says, and most that do are a shell of themselves. The Tomorrow War spends most of its time in the future, but its central theme is timeless: the replayed tragedy that sometimes you don't come home the same from war.
The mix of civilians seems also intended to bring in some funnier folks to the fight. That includes Mary Lynn Rajskub but especially Sam Richardson, who immediately befriends Forester with his nonstop, anxiety-induced, deadpan prattle. Richardson, a veteran of Veep, is really good at this, and it's cheering to see him more center stage. (He's even better in another new release that blends horror and comedy, Werewolves Within.) McKay, director of The Lego Movie, is most at home in humour, and The Tomorrow War can be funny. It's less adept at some of the operatic notes it tries to strike, but, well, aliens can be tricky.
The Tomorrow War
Director: Chris McKay
Cast: Chris Pratt, J.K. Simmons, Sam Richardson
Two and a half stars out of four
The guitar will be auctioned on May 29 at the Hard Rock Cafe in New York
Fitness enthusiast Sarah Lindsay shares insights on what it takes to embark on a fitness journey and sustain it amidst a busy lifestyle
Such platforms help women to re-enter the workforce by equipping them with new-age skills, upskilling, polishing their interviewing skills and revamping their resumes
Official autism-friendly in-flight certification is in the works, possibly used by other airlines
Airlines cut more than half of their normal flight schedules at Paris's two main airports, with many flights in the southern city of Marseille also grounded
This success was underpinned by a robust 19% growth in total income
The group’s asset base surpassed Dh900 billion
Saji first took the exam in January and scored 99.99 but, because he was not satisfied, he sat for the test again in April