The Tomorrow War (2021)
Directed by Chris McKay
The world is stunned when a group of time travelers arrive from the year 2051 to deliver an urgent message: Thirty years in the future, mankind is losing a global war against a deadly alien species. The only hope for survival is for soldiers and civilians from the present to be transported to the future and join the fight. Among those recruited is high school teacher and family man Dan Forester. Determined to save the world for his young daughter, Dan teams up with a brilliant scientist and his estranged father in a desperate quest to rewrite the fate of the planet.
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Large battle sequences are reminiscent of “Starship Troopers,” and screenwriter Dean seems influenced by the work of classic science fiction author Robert A. Heinlein.
In the vein of “Starship Troopers,” the creatures are so fast and numerous that the heavy firepower is never heavy enough; rather than machine guns, these conscripts need rocket launchers or laser weapons.
Specifically, the entire narrative trajectory comes across less as an homage and more as a derivation of The Terminator , Starship Troopers , and Edge of Tomorrow .
The look and particularly the sound of the White Spikes is a tad familiar to, I don’t know, 90 percent of all alien-related works of late (most of which seem to borrow heavily from Starship Troopers and/or the Alien movies in the way the creatures swarm in massive numbers but still seem to be defensible by the humans, which makes so little sense).
It’s reminiscent of the anti-fascist “Starship Troopers,” the father-daughter centered “Interstellar,” and the punch-the-air alien conflict driving “Independence Day.”
It’s derivative to the core, borrowing from like-minded genre movies like Terminator, Independence Day, Starship Troopers and Edge of Tomorrow.
The Tomorrow War manages to combine the best bits of Edge Of Tomorrow , Arrival , Armageddon , Alien , Independence Day , and God knows what else in the kind of movie that Michael Bay or Roland Emmerich would’ve directed in their primes if they’d had more talent.
Here’s a high-concept sci-fi film attempting to channel the energy of Independence Day , complete with some decent star power and capable action direction.
Earth has been invaded by aliens, à la “Independence Day.” Said invasion is actually occurring in 2051, so the children of the next generation who haven’t been born yet have been sent back via wormhole in search of help with a last stand, à la “Terminator.”
When compared to the ultimate in this category, “Independence Day,” where the President literally gets in a plane (after a stirring St. Crispin’s Day-style speech) to fight the aliens, it is impossible not think about what prompted it.
If you’re a fan of the Alien movie franchise or Independence Day then The Tomorrow War will be right up your alley.
It’s reminiscent of the anti-fascist “Starship Troopers,” the father-daughter centered “Interstellar,” and the punch-the-air alien conflict driving “Independence Day.”
With a prelude this reminiscent of Edge of Tomorrow and a catalyst that recalls Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises , The Tomorrow War makes itself clear early.
It’s nowhere near as memorable a dynamic as the one Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt built in Edge of Tomorrow , an excellent science fiction war movie from which The Tomorrow War borrows a great deal.
The Tomorrow War manages to combine the best bits of Edge Of Tomorrow , Arrival , Armageddon , Alien , Independence Day , and God knows what else in the kind of movie that Michael Bay or Roland Emmerich would’ve directed in their primes if they’d had more talent.
The Tomorrow War hopes audiences will thus also be reminded of Edge of Tomorrow , Alien , Back to the Future, and, for less logical reasons, Pratt’s own Jurassic World franchise (the aliens have adorable little T-Rex arms and shriek like velociraptors).
There are elements of the film that are akin to "The Terminator" or more poignantly and philosophically (if you will, even for a numb-your-mind, adrenaline-pumping blockbuster) like "Edge of Tomorrow".
Specifically, the entire narrative trajectory comes across less as an homage and more as a derivation of The Terminator , Starship Troopers , and Edge of Tomorrow .
Violence notwithstanding, McKay credits the Frank Capra classic "It's a Wonderful Life" as inspiration for "The Tomorrow War," as both feature a family man given a second chance at life once he has glimpsed the future.
Warnings for the world notwithstanding, there’s also an It’s A Wonderful Life vibe to this film since Dan has an opportunity to give himself a second chance.
The movie includes nods to everything from Alien to Waterworld to It's a Wonderful Life.
There is also enough sweetness and focus on human relations to give it a quality like "It's a Wonderful Life", that is, if George Bailey trudged through Miami high-rises, evading spear-wielding, flesh-eating monsters yet still found time for that ah-ha moment, fully understanding how much he had been taking for granted.
Dan, who is ex military himself, seems to be on the same path, which sets up the dumb notion that we may be watching "It's a Wonderful Life" with space monsters.
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I liked it anyway, in the same way I love Frequency and Interstellar , two other, better films about father/son or father/daughter issues that use the space-time continuum as a metaphor.
It’s reminiscent of the anti-fascist “Starship Troopers,” the father-daughter centered “Interstellar,” and the punch-the-air alien conflict driving “Independence Day.”
As Forester gets called up, we get quick family moments, such as a parting with his daughter (which again has echos of yet another far superior influence, “ Interstellar “), and leaving his wife, played by Betty Gilpin (“ GLOW “).
Extract certain elements of the “Terminator” franchise, borrow some pieces of “Independence Day” and “Alien,” sprinkle in some existential elements from “Interstellar” but get the ingredients mostly wrong, and you’d have “The Tomorrow War.”
Even Dan’s promise to return to his wife Emmy (Betty Gilpin) and daughter Muri (Ryan Kiera Armstrong) feels lifted from Interstellar, and Yvonne Strahovski’s role is easy to decipher, given the nature of the plot.
There are unintentionally funny moments in “The Tomorrow War” (like the out-of-the-blue way that Muri discovers the toxin formula she’s searching for), but the kitschiest thing about the movie may simply be that it’s such a vacuum cleaner of sci-fi blockbuster tropes: aliens, climate change, going back to the future to tweak the course of humanity, “Interstellar” father-daughter hugs across time.
The Tomorrow War manages to combine the best bits of Edge Of Tomorrow , Arrival , Armageddon , Alien , Independence Day , and God knows what else in the kind of movie that Michael Bay or Roland Emmerich would’ve directed in their primes if they’d had more talent.
There are good actors in this film, including an Oscar-winner in J.K. Simmons, who plays Dan’s militia-minded estranged father, but none of them can overcome the charmless and convoluted script, which comes nowhere close to the many films that obviously inspired it, such as Terminator 2 , Alien and Armageddon .
It's a bit of a hodgepodge of better, and worse, movies – including Armageddon , Starship Troopers and the Terminator and Alien franchises – but remains defiantly entertaining.
Once the film is finished showing you science, the aliens attack, and it's like "Armageddon" for a bit, in that, every possible thing that can go wrong does.
Given that it's a summer release, one could absolutely imagine seeing this at a drive-in back in the '90s with other event films like Independence Day , Men in Black , or Armageddon , with the blend of action, humor, sci-fi, and comedy sure to scratch a specific itch of certain audiences.
Not since “Armageddon” has a plot been so miniscule to the big, brawny action set pieces that if you looked hard enough, Micheal Bay probably has consulting credit.
The action scenes all feel lifted from other films, from Aliens to Starship Troopers to The Empire Strikes Back , and it doesn’t help that they’re all scored at maximum volume by composer Lorne Balfe, who’s working overtime to guarantee that Hans Zimmer receives royalties for The Dark Knight .
Directed by Chris McKay ("The Lego Batman Movie") from a script by Zach Dean, it's hard to call "Tomorrow War" an original concept when it draws extensively from so many previous movies, with the martial qualities of "Aliens" prominent among them.
Ironically, we can probably blame Aliens (1986), which turned Ridley Scott’s singular biomechanical menace into a horde of horrors and has since had so many films follow suit.
That’s the admittedly simplistic version of a plot that takes its DNA from the Aliens and Terminator movies with time travel, aliens, and all the things sci-fi movie enthusiasts love and finds a way to create an entertaining popcorn flick without skimping on the science.
Hence a poor man’s Edge Of Tomorrow , which also contains elements of A Quiet Place , Interstellar , Alien , Aliens , Alien: Resurrection , Alien vs. Predator , Prometheus , and a variety of faith-based entertainment.
So is the way that “The Tomorrow War” uses them to rattle his heroes, as McKay stages a handful of gripping setpieces while the monsters are still in the shadows; nuance inevitably gives way to noise when the white spikes emerge en masse, and it’s hard to distinguish this movie from the rest of its eye-numbing digital ilk by the time it gets to an oil rig siege that unfolds like an overworked cross between “Aliens” and “Metal Gear Solid 2.”
With a prelude this reminiscent of Edge of Tomorrow and a catalyst that recalls Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises , The Tomorrow War makes itself clear early.
It reminds me of The Dark Knight Rises when Bane destroyed the football stadium during a game.
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.
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There are elements of the film that are akin to "The Terminator" or more poignantly and philosophically (if you will, even for a numb-your-mind, adrenaline-pumping blockbuster) like "Edge of Tomorrow".
Specifically, the entire narrative trajectory comes across less as an homage and more as a derivation of The Terminator , Starship Troopers , and Edge of Tomorrow .
Like its forebear The Terminator , which was originally received as simply a fun B-movie before it became acclaimed as a deathless cinematic classic, it’s exciting without taking itself too seriously.
“The Tomorrow War,” in trying to become the new “Independence Day” (this release date is not arbitrary), throws “Alien,” “The Terminator” and “A Quiet Place” in a blender.
Imagine The Terminator meets A Quiet Place meets Independence Day meets The Thing meets Edge of Tomorrow meets Prometheus … I could go on and on.
(CNN) Part "The Terminator" turned upside down, part "Starship Troopers," "The Tomorrow War" is the latest Paramount sci-fi/action movie redirected from theaters to streaming by the pandemic, and while it's slightly better than "Infinite," it's still not very good.
No doubt inspired by A Quiet Place, they’re the movie’s biggest card to play, and suitably horrifying in design.
There’s this, there’s 2014’s Edge of Tomorrow (the other time travel/alien invasion flick), A Quiet Place (2018), even the robots of Oblivion (2013).
It’s truly a shame that a studio like Paramount Pictures, who once might take a chance on an Arrival or an Annihilation or a Cloverfield, Super 8, and yes, A Quiet Place, now feels it’s safer to sell off a mega-budget sci-fi film like The Tomorrow War.
(The aliens look just like the monsters from Cloverfield, and Stranger Things, and A Quiet Place and Underwater and oh my god can we please start designing some different monsters already.)
They're basically the spindly, fast-moving, sharp-toothed creatures from A Quiet Place , only with a few extras, like tentacles that can fire deadly white spikes.
Their presence is forwarded with clicking that made us think of A Quiet Place.