Starring Chris Pratt, Yvonne Strahovski, J.K. Simmons, Betty Gilpin, Sam Richardson, Edwin Hodge, Mike Mitchell, Mary Lynn Rajskub

Directed by Chris McKay

Out Now (Amazon Prime)

When soldiers from the year 2051 arrive to warn of a terrible war in their time which threatens to wipe out humanity, ex Green Beret Dan Forester finds himself part of the draft of present day warriors sent forward to help combat the threat.

It’s difficult to know where to start with a film like this. It has all the right elements to be something quite special – an all-star cast, a not inconsiderable budget and a director whose debut in the director’s chair was the Lego Batman Movie. Why then, is it so crushingly mediocre?

Part of the issue lies with Pratt himself. A dependably charismatic leading man, Pratt really only has one speed and that’s…well, Chris Pratt. That means slightly goofy but earnest characters who aren’t quite as cool as they think they are, clumsily bounding from one mishap to the next with a twinkle in their eye and a quip on their lips. That would work better if The Tomorrow War ever really felt as if it were a story that would fit that sort of character. Unfortunately, it plays its narrative absolutely straight-faced, which jars both with Pratt’s own performance as well as several of the lines handed out to other characters.

Another issue it suffers from is a simple lack of coherence. Oddly, as far as the time travel stuff goes, it does a fairly decent job of explaining away the obvious question – why don’t we send soldiers to an earlier point in the future to stop the massive threat before it gets too big? Shame then that it plays so fast and loose with just about everything else. It’s one of those movies which keeps seeding really obvious bits of exposition/specific character traits at various points which then pay off in the most generic, lazy way possible. These range from the particular obsession of one of Pratt’s pupils (after several tours of duty he became a teacher) to literal awkwardly jammed in lines of dialogue which come to fruition down the line.

It’s not even really clear what the plan of the people from the future is – manpower, sure, but to what end never really seems all that clear, given that they have already struggled, with weapons, technology and tactics from nearly 30 years hence, to make any sort of impact at all. The way that the draft works is downright nonsensical, basically the equivalent of press-ganging, and that the draftees then get sent out literally for a seven day tour before whoever survives is sent back home is just narratively dumb.

On top of all this, the movie tries its best to wrestle in a sort of fatherhood angst type tale, involving J.K. Simmons as Forester’s estranged father who seems basically to be a MacGuffin of a character, blessed with exactly the right set of (nebulously defined) skills to be the person to whom his son can turn at specific points of the movie. It also involves a rather complex relationship between Pratt and his young daughter, and the revelation of how certain events will play out in his life over the next few years.

At certain points, it feels like Edge of Tomorrow/Live. Die. Repeat got together with 2012 and surrogated a baby via Michael Bay. It goes from semi-intelligent-sounding hard Sci-Fi to brainless explosive set pieces in less time than it takes to blink, and it randomly throws in the occasional plot point which one assumes will be important and then just forgets all about it. There’s an early thread, for example involving Forester apparently going for some big job in the private sector which seems to be a huge deal for him but it literally never gets mentioned or is in any way relevant for the rest of the film. The final plan to wipe out the invaders – referred to as Whitespikes – is all over the place, not least because it involves people apparently immediately forgetting the exact parameters of what they’re dealing with, and a final act in which…well, let’s just say things get super dumb, with baddies which are so narratively convenient in how their apparent strengths, skills and abilities manifest from one scene to the next that it’s like watching a video game being played on super easy mode.

It’s also at least a half hour too long. There are long stretches where things get repetitive (again especially in the third act) and where very little happens (about ten minutes is devoted to pretty much nothing happening in a lab for example) and so despite not being as actively terrible as some entries in the genre, it outstays its welcome by quite a margin.

Mostly though, it just makes very little sense because it can’t quite decide whether it’s focused very tightly on Forester’s life and decisions, or on the global extinction event looming in humanity’s future. It sort of ping pongs between the two, never really properly serving either. It also half-heartedly throws in some environmental commentary but much like a lot of what it does, it then promptly forgets about it in favour of something else.

Verdict: TV soap opera writing meets Michael Bay direction on a budget that really doesn’t show up on the screen. If you’ve got Prime anyway, it’s maybe worth sticking on if you fancy some brainless explosions, but don’t go out of your way for it – it isn’t worth it. 5/10

Greg D. Smith