The final trailer for Amazon’s big-budget science fiction action film The Tomorrow War has landed, bringing with it some typical trappings of the genre: an ordinary man in over his head and an aggressive alien predator determined to wipe out humanity. The film stars Chris Pratt as Dan Forester, a teacher, family man, and veteran who is recruited by a time-traveling army from 2051. Humanity is on the brink of extinction thanks to an alien invasion, and these folks from the future have instituted a retroactive draft from the past to fight the war of the future.
The film is directed by Chris McKay (The Lego Movie, The Lego Batman Movie), and stars Pratt, Yvonne Strahovski (The Handmaid’s Tale) as a military strategist from the future, J. K. Simmons as Pratt’s father, Jasmine Matthews as Lt. Hart, Seychelle Gabriel as Sgt. Diaz, Betty Gilpin as Pratt’s wife, and Sam Richardson (Veep) as Pratt’s friend/fellow soldier who is stealing scenes already with his comedic delivery. The Tomorrow War was originally set to be a theatrical release from Paramount Pictures, but was bought by Amazon Studios in the spring.
The film shares some plot points with 2014’s Edge of Tomorrow, which followed Tom Cruise as a soldier fighting off an alien attack who gets stuck in a time loop. And while that film was inventive and exciting, I am … less enthused about The Tomorrow War? Mainly because there are some glaring plot issues present in the trailer.
First off, why is the future army recruiting regular folks to fight the aliens? If they have access to the entire past, why aren’t they cherry-picking warriors from different eras? Or just going straight to the military and recruiting whole armies? Wouldn’t that be more effective than training a random bunch of folks from 2021?
For that matter, why not send their own team back to the dawn of the alien invasion to prevent it from happening? Are there just not enough human beings left on the planet? And if so, why not just jump back a few months and mobilize all the fallen soldiers with a new game plan?
Maybe all of these questions will be answered in the film itself. Still, I’m not going to say no to an action-packed sci-fi film with a charismatic cast, even though Chris Pratt’s leading man schtick is getting old. I usually enjoy him, but it feels like every role Pratt plays is basically Peter Quill. He wouldn’t be the first movie star to parlay his real-life persona into his performances, but I feel like it’s a case of diminishing returns.
However, I am very excited to see Yvonne Strahovski get another leading action role. After being largely wasted in The Predator, Strahovski gets another crack at battling aliens. I also have a prediction to make. Her character is codenamed Romeo Command, which leads me to believe that she is in fact Chris Pratt’s daughter all grown up in the future. Prove me wrong, Internet!
The Tomorrow War premieres on Amazon Prime on July 2.
(image: Amazon)
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