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The Tomorrow War Flushes Away Ambition to Reveal a Husk of a Promising Concept


The driving concept behind The Tomorrow War is both uniquely compelling and extremely silly –in a way that is reminiscent of classic science-fiction literature. This plot about a military campaign in the future recruiting from the past could be right out of Heinlein or even Philip K. Dick. It’s just bizarrely specific yet interesting enough as an idea. And yet for as curious as that idea is I don’t know that it makes for a good movie –at least not in the way it’s used by writer Zach Dean and Lego Batman Movie director Chris McKay. It translates oddly and in some places rather awkwardly. Indeed, The Tomorrow War feels like a bad adaptation of a classic sci-fi story that was never written.
Of course its’ function primarily is as a vehicle for star and producer Chris Pratt, who’s been in need of one in the downtime between Marvel and Jurassic World movies. And he’s no stranger to poorly executed sci-fi films with interesting premises that aren’t quite realized to their full potential. He plays a Green Beret turned biology teacher, which allows him to be both action hero and brilliant scientist –in both disciplines he is a very militaristic model, which does mean Pratt’s trademark goofiness is subdued (though it does still appear on occasion for the illusion of relatability). Following this, much of the movie has a very military-friendly perspective, which you wouldn’t have guessed from the way it brings about its’ conflict.
It begins with soldiers from thirty years into the future arriving at a World Cup game on Christmas 2022 to tell humanity that they are fighting a deadly war against alien invaders, that a worldwide draft is necessary to stop them, and that only 20% of those drafted will come back alive. On its’ face it is immensely suspicious, especially with how mysterious the time travel technology is and how little information the emissaries from the future are willing to give about the aliens. Mention is made of a global crisis arising from this and a widespread anti-war movement, but the film has no real interest in interrogating the ethics of this whole endeavor. World leaders, politicians, and a chunk of the general public just go along with it, trusting the folks from the future are telling the truth. You’d think there’d be some twist or dark repercussions from this blind adherence to such a severe protocol, but there aren’t. When Pratt’s Dan Forester, drafted because he’s already dead in the timeline they’re travelling to, is funneled to the future, it turns out to be exactly what all the recruits were led to believe. And that is significantly underwhelming.
The next hour and a half is largely uninspired alien fights and carnage with occasional interruptions for plot. The aliens themselves are a somewhat interesting design, akin to the Cloverfield monster if it was smaller and given tentacles –but the action scenes are shot often indistinctly so that they don’t come off as impressive an adversary as they might. It just feels like dull video game footage when it’s not directly aping Aliens or other such military sci-fi forerunners. You can tell this was made by a director relatively new to live-action filmmaking and completely new to action movies. The emotional stakes have a glimmer of something promising to them in Forester being made to work alongside his adult daughter Muri (Yvonne Strahovksi). But like with the premise itself, the script takes this tension in a safe and banal direction as it concerns Dans’ future and Muri’s past -one that is promptly forgotten about by the late stages of the movie. All the while the military propaganda of the piece doesn’t let up –even as so many soldiers die horribly, the apparatus they’re doing so for is never seen as anything but noble. Pratt of course is also their most ideal avatar, as Forester is incredibly capable, tactful, and leaderly. And sequences from basic training right through to the actual alien encounters play like scenes from Starship Troopers if it weren’t self-aware.
Much of this portion of the overly long movie recalls specifically Iraq and Afghanistan. It’s noteworthy that while this is a worldwide draft and conflict, we only ever see Americans engage in the fight. McKay borrows stylistic elements from Kathryn Bigelow and even Michael Bay, though is careful to keep obscure any socio-political parallels to real wars, as inevitable as they may be. But this is also just one of many metaphors The Tomorrow War juggles with and fumbles. The future where this war is raging is characterized in terms of grim ultimates –contemporary society is warned frequently that the war is an impending extinction event thereby justifying the essentialism of serving. The aliens themselves go from representing the unknowable horrors of the universe to simply non-American enemies, to wild animals that must be contained to ultimately the repercussions of climate change itself. 
That last one especially comes out of nowhere in the third act, where a brand new subplot is constructed as an awkward epilogue to the main story, and which centres a relationship between Forester and his estranged father (J.K. Simmons) that was an apparent theme nowhere else in the movie. The politics in this part get especially sketchy too, as it seemingly advocates vigilante action when it comes to world-shattering threats. Forrester gives a speech about how the nations of the world won’t do anything but debate or fight each other, so his crew will have to deal with the problem themselves -his crew of course being mostly military. And with this late film allegory in place, it gives the impression McKay is saying the military are who we should trust to solve climate change. It’s flawed reasoning to say the least, especially as the allegory is a pretty weak one and the comment on modern international diplomacy pretty shallow. But it’s at least consistent with the ideology the film has expressed thus far.
The Tomorrow War isn’t clever as it wants to be, nor is it very much fun. It depends on clichés in addition to its’ more high concept issues, especially on the back-end where, for example, a eureka moment comes courtesy of one of Forrester’s middle-school students. It refuses to take advantage of the nuances it hints at, is starkly unambitious in both narrative and technique, making what might have been a novel concept just stale. All that’s left is the silliness -and The Tomorrow War can’t even do that right.

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