The Tomorrow War: Today's thrills

The Tomorrow War (2021) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Rated PG-13, for relentless sci-fi action and violence, and brief profanity

Available via: Amazon Prime

By Derrick Bang

This certainly is the best argument I’ve heard, for accelerating our finding a way to reverse the effects of climate change.

 

Dan (Chris Pratt, second from left), Dorian (Edwin Hodge, second from right) and Charlie
(Sam Richardson, far right) cautiously make their way toward the building that
contains an upper-floor lab, where a team of scientists awaits rescue.

Director Chris McKay’s slam-bang sci-fi epic is a suspenseful blend of 1996’s Independence Day and 1997’s Starship Troopers, with a cool time travel element added. Zach Dean’s original script balances edge-of-the-seat battle thrills with a well-cast roster of appealing characters who — in between breathtaking skirmishes — enjoy welcome opportunities for emotional development.

The plot chugs along in a series of distinct acts, each ramping up the tension while cleverly leading to the next. The entertaining result is thoroughly satisfying in a way that eluded soulless, world-shattering misfires such as Godzilla vs. Kong, Terminator: Dark Fate and Pacific Rim: Uprising.

 

Dan Forester (Chris Pratt), his wife Emmy (Betty Gilpin) and their adorable young daughter Muri (Ryan Kiera Armstrong) are hosting a World Cup soccer party, when the televised game is abruptly interrupted — in impressively dramatic fashion — by a squad of time-traveling soldiers who appear on the field. Taking advantage of the international viewing audience, they announce that they’re from the year 2051, when the entire human race is losing a global war against a terrifying alien species.

 

Our only hope lies with a most unusual conscription: transporting thousands of citizens from the present, forward in time, to join the battle. United in spirit against this common enemy, all the nations of the world participate.

 

For awhile.

 

But as months pass, and the horrific attrition rate gets progressively worse, international cooperation evaporates amid a grinding sense of helpless resignation. (Dean definitely has a bead on the uglier, selfish side of human nature.)

 

Forester, meanwhile, has his own long-simmering problems. He’s a reluctant high school science teacher dismayed by his inability to secure a more prestigious job; an Army Special Operations Command veteran with lingering traces of PTSD; and is burdened by serious rage issues involving his long-estranged father, James (J.K. Simmons). All of this has strained his marriage, which Muri morosely senses.

 

The family anxiety worsens when Dan’s draft number comes up.

 

Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates: This film needs an intervention

Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates (2016) • View trailer 
Two stars. Rated R, for nudity, crude sexual content, drug use and relentless profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 7.8.16

Strip the profanity away, and the rest of this script could be printed on a postage stamp.

Indeed, it’s rather audacious of Andrew Jay Cohen and Brendan O’Brien to claim credit for writing this flimsy excuse for a screenplay; most of what landed on the screen seems to be improvised. On the spot. While everybody in question was under the influence of intelligence-altering substances.

After realizing that their "respectable" dates are anything but, Dave (Zac Efron, far right)
and Mike (Adam Devine) agree to a truce with Tatiana (Aubrey Plaza, far left) and Alice
(Anna Kendrick). Whether this quartet can repair two days' worth of damage, however, is
an entirely different matter...

The oh-so-hilarious (not!) “outtakes” included, during the end credits, certainly suggest as much.

Sadly — for those of us forced to endure the results — these folks are far, far removed from the likes of lightning-quick improv talents. Sputtering and flailing through a relentless stream of F-bombs and vulgar euphemisms is hardly the height of comedy; it simply smacks of clueless desperation. It’s actually rather painful, particularly when we know full well that these actors are capable of much better.

In fairness, Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates is occasionally funny, in spite of itself. And it’s rescued from total turkeydom by the effervescent work of Anna Kendrick, who repeatedly rises above the thin material. She puts some actual ability and effort into her performance, in stark contrast to all the others, who mostly swan about and pose for the camera, like 10-year-old show-offs.

Honestly, it’s surprising they don’t all scream “Look at me! Look at me!”

The story, such as it is:

Hard-partying brothers Mike and Dave Stangle (Adam Devine and Zac Efron) have ruined too many previous family gatherings, mostly because they always come stag, get drunk and try to pick up available women. Thus, when younger sister Jeanie (Sugar Lyn Beard) announces her impending dream wedding in Hawaii, their parents (Stephen Root and Stephanie Faracy) lay down fresh ground rules: Mike and Dave can attend only if they bring dates. Respectable dates.

The theory being, well-behaved companions will keep the boys in line.

Not having the faintest idea how to find such women, Mike and Dave resort to the go-to 21st solution: They advertise on Craigslist. (This much actually happened, in real life, in February 2013; check YouTube to see the actual Stangle brothers being interviewed.)