Title: The Tomorrow War
Director: Chris McKay
Cast: Chris Pratt, Yvonne Strahovski, J. K. Simmons, Betty Gilpin, Sam Richardson, Edwin Hodge, Jasmine Mathews, Ryan Kiera Armstrong, and Keith Powers
Movie length: 2 hours 20 minutes
What it is: Sci-Fi movie which sees travelers from the future come back in time with a warning that all of mankind will be wiped out (“You are our last hope” the leader says) unless they get help to eradicate a dead alien species they call ‘Spikes’. The only way to help mankind survive is for people from our time to go to the future to take on the aliens.
What I think: The movie originally was slated for a big screen debut but due to the pandemic that got thwarted, and Amazon bought the rights for Prime Video. That being said, the movie was a great action film, but one that would have benefited more on a big screen with better audio compared to what I have in my house due to the action scenes (and explosions, LOTS of explosions).
The movie opens with a Christmas party where The Waitresses – Christmas Wrapping is playing in the background (which was a well placed song mostly because of the lyric “Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas But I think I’ll miss this one this year”.) At the party Chris Pratt’s Dan Forester tells his daughter “I’m meant to do something special with my life” which led to him attempting to save the world for her.
The main cast was great (especially the scenes with just Chris and Yvonne), and Sam Richardson provided a little bit of comedic relief during an intense fight scene with the ‘Spikes’ in a stairwell. It was also seeing great to see J.K. Simmons (a very buff and bearded J.K.) as Dan’s estranged father being used well in a good action role.
Chris McKay did a great job for his first live action movie, after previously having directed movies including The Lego Movie, and The Lego Batman Movie.
Of course we can’t have a movie review about a movie with aliens without talking about them. Large creatures that run on four of their six llmbs with tentacles protruding from their back that shoot spikes out of them, hence the creatures being referred to as “Spikes”) were designed very well and very creepy (as one would expect from Ken Barthelmey who also has done design work for Godzilla vs Kong, Thor: Love and Thunder, Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, and a lot more).
My Grade: B. A good mindless action flick but as I said earlier would have benefitted from a theatrical screen and audio system. How they defeat they end up defeating the aliens was not something I saw coming, but was well done (and would have made Michael Bay happy). All in all this is a good Summer blockbuster type movie, but one that you can now see on Amazon’s Prime Video service.
THE TOMORROW WAR will premiere on Amazon’s Prime Video service on July 2nd.
Do you plan to watch it? Let us know in the comments!
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