The Tomorrow War (2021)

The cinematography and lighting in this film are par for the course as far as Sci-Fi movies go. There weren’t any shots that I thought stood out, but there weren’t any that were poorly framed. You can see all the characters in their environments, and there is an interesting palette change between the present and the future. The future is more saturated, carrying shades of orange and red, likely reflecting the dystopian and fire nature of the setting. The present is desaturated, coloured with shades of gray and blue. After the climax has concluded the present starts having warmer hues and brighter colours, likely referring to the future now seeming brighter.

The effects are good. The green screen isn’t obvious and the CGI models for the machines are seamless. The time-jump effect is pretty good, feeling more like a portal. I do also enjoy that the bodies are disintegrated before the jump and reassembled after the jump. And the CGI on the Whitespikes is impressive, with the design feeling very fresh and unique. The editing has good pacing, focusing on longer shots during quiet moments and quicker cuts during the action. Unlike other action films, though, there aren’t a billion cuts for one simple action, so it makes the film easier to follow. There are two standout moments in the action for me, though: 1) when a bunch of Whitespikes are attacking at the midpoint and they get cut up by helicopter blades; 2) Adult Muri falling into the army of those creatures emerging from the ocean is haunting.

Musically, the film doesn’t stand out. The score is generically action-oriented, with heavy drums and a fast beat. There isn’t anything that would separate this film from other movies in it genre, but it does the job that it’s supposed to. There are a few moments in the film, where the character’s inner emotions are surfacing, when the music is softer and slower, but it feels weirdly tense.

I don’t really get a unique vibe from any of the actors in the film, though I can’t say that any of them are terrible. I am a little disappointed that Chris Pratt seems to have transitioned from a funny-action lead to a generic action lead. He acts invested in this film, but I’ve just seen (and heard) better performances from him. J.K. Simmons does a great job, as always, and he rocks that big Santa beard. Yvonne Strahovski also performs wonderfully, capturing the duality of her character’s abandonment issues, catharsis of seeing her dad alive again, and the stoicism that she needs to display as a colonel. Everyone else does a good job. I was glad to see Sam Richardson’ character survive the movie. Edwin Hodge captures the nature of his character as the tough guy trying to have an honourable death.

I will admit, it is a little refreshing to have futuristic costumes that look similar to modern day outfits: body armour, camouflage pants, and carrying light. The arm pads look futuristic, but other than that, there is little to distinguish, on a costuming level, between the two time periods. An argument could be made that, since the apocalypse already happened, resources were scarce and they just picked up what they could find, which would add to this world’s realism.

But the set design covers this distinction much better. Whenever we see the future-tech in present-day, there is a clear difference. Modern day has things like TVs and cars, but the future carries that body scanning tech that tells you when a character has died on their timeline. The bigger change is in how the worlds look. I previously mentioned the colour palette, but it does get covered here because the future is constantly on fire and there are destroyed buildings everywhere. The winter tundra in the climax looks dangerous and cold, but there is a slight problem with the costumes when you notice that their clothes don’t look sufficient enough to warm them. The interior of the alien ship looks generic, though I will say that’s likely because it’s always dark on that set, so you can’t really see anything.

Plotwise is where the film does lose me a little bit. I usually have a rule about certain Sci-Fi films: I don’t talk about the mechanics of time travel, usually because it differs on a movie-to-movie basis. There are always going to be an abundance of time travel paradoxes if you think about it for more than a few seconds. So, I won’t go into too much detail about that here. Suffice it to say that my biggest issue is that it is set up that changing the present will affect the future, but rather than do research and fight the cause of the problem before it becomes one, they’d rather bring soldiers and civilians from the present to fight in the future. This is a fun premise, but then you realize that Chris Pratt’s character figures out that the aliens were frozen on earth hundreds of years prior but does so in about 24 hours. The future people also knew when the aliens were going to appear and where they started appearing, so why not figure out exactly where and stop them before they breed? It just strikes me as illogical.

I’m also not a big fan of the “absentee father” cliché, and this film doubles down on that, using both J.K. Simmons and Chris Pratt, as well as Chriss Pratt and Yvonne Strahovski. Yes, even if your parent is a military person, losing them will still hurt, but for this movie, it just feels like tacked on conflict. Especially since both pairs reconcile by the end of their arcs.

Other than those two things, I felt the movie to be very generic Sci-Fi: these characters are fighting in a war, with an alien species that has all but wiped-out humanity, time travel, a MacGuffin that will solve everything, parental issues (usually abandonment), and a chosen one that will save the world/universe.

The dialogue is simplistic; I never felt like I needed a dictionary to understand it. I also liked how the future people never really talked down to the present folk, but they didn’t use obvious science-sounding buzz words like quantum. It’s very simple and easy to follow but it never feels dumbed-down. And the way that they describe time travel is easy to follow and understandable. I did enjoy how the audience was poking holes in the theory, which served as a stand-in for people who will nitpick this film. Basically, it’s telling us to enjoy the ride, rather than focus on the details.

Chris Pratt’s character, Dan, has some complexity to him. He wants to be involved in more lab-work and get out of his high school biology teacher job. I get the sense his arc is supposed to be about either accepting his family is important or to believe in himself, neither of which I thought was very well developed. He’s shown to care very deeply for his family in the beginning and Muri’s monologue about how he left them felt out of character. Except for the possibility that he watched his daughter die and that destroyed him, resulting in what happened. But then, this timeline proves that he was so determined to save his daughter that he saved the world to do so. And as for believing in himself, this also doesn’t feel warranted, as he’s visibly upset by losing his dream job and was shown to be very confident that he would get it.

Adult Muri, played by Yvonne Strahovski, has a small arc within the Second Act. Again, my ire comes from her forced hatred towards her father and quick turn before he returns. It does work as a deathbed forgiveness kind of thing, though. The two characters do have cute moments like their first in-person meeting where Dan slowly puts together that she’s Muri.

Sam Richardson as Charlie is probably the second most-entertaining character in the film (next to J.K. Simmons James). He gets a small arc about being brave, hiding in the first half, but cutting a monster up with a chainsaw.

Dorian, played by Edwin Hodge, has the most complexity in the film. He’s searching for a more honourable death than dying slowly of cancer. He’s translated this into helping out where he can, which creates a more interesting character. I’d watch an entire movie about just him.

Because of the expanse of characters with differing actions, it seems like the film lacks a proper theme. None of the characters really embody a sense of being unified under a thematic statement. In fact, there isn’t even an antagonist in the film. It’s literally about humanity fighting aliens and that’s about as deep as it gets. And don’t get me wrong, sometimes humanity just needs to survive, but it does leave the movie feeling slightly empty.

The closest I can find are notions of never give up, or togetherness. I guess an argument could be made that Daniel is a bit distant from his family because of his dream goals, and he’s certainly distant from his father, and he needs to learn to work together with them. In fact, forming a team is how they solve the problem and defeat the aliens once and for all. But there is also this notion of stubbornness played throughout. Every character is stubborn and learns to be less-so by the end of the film. However, this is still muddled in between everything else that’s going on in the film.

Personally, I did enjoy the film. While I started this analysis ready to defend it, I did find that I couldn’t get past the headache of time travel, the muddled nature of the theme, and the generic nature of the plot and characters, at least from an analytical standpoint. The movie looks very good, polished, and there is some quality set design. It could be because I’ve seen these concepts so many times that they just don’t feel special anymore, but I am a firm believer in the concept that “true originality is no longer possible,” and that “unoriginal things can still be fun.” <i>The Tomorrow War</i> borrows elements from more unique films and may feel generic at times, but it’s far from being terrible, so I do recommend checking it out for yourself.