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.