The Tomorrow War is a film of many contradictions, and where it stumbles, it falls. Yet, where it shines, it does so excellently. It plays with some unique concepts, and its engaging visuals and high stakes action make it more enjoyable than not for the everyday sci-fi enjoyer.

I often glance over direct-to-streaming movies, as they tend to be low-budget, shoddily-made wastes of time that weren’t good enough to be shown in cinemas but interesting enough to not be canned. However, The Tomorrow War came to my attention after hearing many conflicting opinions of it being either the best original sci-fi in recent years, or an abysmal, outdated action flick to satiate the tastes of (grrr) straight white men. So, I decided to find out for myself, and naturally, it wasn’t quite either of these.

Spoilers ahead!

The premise of the film is that 30 years in the future, the world has been overrun by vicious aliens known as “Whitespikes”, and most of humanity has been slaughtered by the extra-terrestrial threat. What’s left of the population have become hardened soldiers who travel back in time in order to warn the world of the coming war, and conscript present day civilians to bolster their forces. How they were able to invent time travel despite having clearly-stated issues with resources and research capability, as well as everything else they use being contemporary technology – who knows?! Nevertheless I found it was an interesting twist on the Terminator time travel plot; sending soldiers forwards in time to fight rather than backwards to prevent a catastrophe (at least at first). Our protagonist is Dan Forester (played by Chris Pratt), a meek biology teacher/hardcore military veteran – more on that later – who is chosen as a prime candidate for conscription and sent to the future to join the fight.

From here, it gets a little strange. Each act of the film feels like it could be it’s own enclosed episode, with all three having their own semi-enclosed narrative. The first sees the conscripts arriving in the future, with a great little sequence where a miscalculation in the time jump causes them to materialise hundreds of feet in the air. The sight of dozens of bodies literally raining down on a burning, hellish, post-apocalyptic Miami was perhaps the most visceral and memorable imagery of the entire movie. Plot armour means that all of our heroes survive, and a rescue mission ensues. This little escapade made great use of tension to build up to the reveal of the aliens, and our heroes seem stuck between a rock and a hard place trying to evacuate the city under the threat of bombing, and the encroaching hoard of extra-terrestrials. I found myself surprised, thinking that I couldn’t have been watching for that long, but it inexplicably felt like the ending of something than a beginning. Characters were sacrificing themselves, the danger was at it’s highest – were the brave soldiers going to make it out in time?

Excluding a few nameless casualties, they of course did, and I was sat back expecting the credits to roll at any moment, but was shocked to discover I was still less than an hour in. A plot twist comes that I honestly didn’t expect – the leader of the future humans is Forester’s daughter all grown up, and he accompanies her on a mission to recover a female Whitespike, so they can develop a more effective way of killing them. This middle third of the story is capped by another great action sequence, as Dan and his daughter rush to send the bio-weapon back to the past whilst thousands of aliens attack the human home base. As you’d expect, he makes it back home, and I breathed a sigh of relief as the film came to a satisfying end. Dan had brought the bio-weapon home, realised the importance of his family, and humanity was ready for the aliens’ arrival.

But wait- there’s more! The final third of the film was yet to come, and being honest – I wish it hadn’t been. Dan and every surviving side character team up for a trip to Russia, and unearth the alien spaceship – where it had apparently been buried this whole time – so they could put a stop to the war before it ever began. The whole segment felt like an unnecessary addendum to an already complete story – it was largely a drag of science zingers and snowmobile riding that demolished all sense of mystery around the aliens and left a sour taste in my mouth after what had been a pretty good film up until that point. It was good to see some characters receive a bit of closure to their arcs, but it’s something that could have easily been achieved in an extra 10 minutes, not 45.

Chris Pratt was the star power behind this film, with his face plastered across many a bus stop and Google-served advertisement, but it’s sad to say this might be him at his worst. Dan Forester is a bland, one-dimensional action hero, who’s only memorable quality is his daddy issues. Worse yet, the film struggles to decide whether it wants him to be the everyman, boring biology teacher forced into an unfamiliar situation, or the war veteran thrust back into the fight to save his family. What results is an ugly clash between the two, where at times he’s a bumbling idiot who knows his way around a gun more than a lab, and at others he’s reeling off his extensive scientific knowledge, disobeying orders and endangering the missions he’s on. Pratt plays the part just fine, but with no good material to work with, it isn’t doing him any favours.

Fortunately, the writing shines a bit more amongst the supporting cast. Sam Richardson’s Charlie is another conscript, with no prior combat experience and anxiety by the bucket-full. He returns from the future in shame, having hidden from the aliens and survived, rather than choosing to fight and die. However he becomes inspired by Forrester’s heroism, and albeit still clumsily, he plucks up the courage to fight, and help to save humanity once and for all. Edwin Hodge plays Dorian, a terminally ill veteran who has miraculously survived multiple incursions into the future. He starts out with a cold, gruff exterior, but gradually opens up to Dan and Charlie and fights alongside them, eventually fulfilling his goal to die on his own terms. Last of all is Dan’s aged-up daughter, played by Yvonne Strahovski. She does an excellent job portraying the character of someone who not only grew up without a father, but grew up in the end of the world, and her character arc is key to both saving Dan and saving humanity. J.K. Simmons is in this too, but is hardly present enough to leave any impression, good or bad. I’d like to give special credit to the extras in this film too, who brought to life the untrained civilian soldiers dropped into a situation that they had little to no chance of escaping from.

It’s clear where the special effects budget went in The Tomorrow War – the Whitespikes are phenomenal-looking adversaries, especially for a film on a streaming budget. Not only do they look believably terrifying, but they act so too. They operate on animalistic behaviours, moving in packs and operating in a matriarchal power structure. Careful consideration seems to have been taken in giving them abilities fit for a predator that has evolved into it’s most efficient form. I may be grasping at straws, but I see tinges of Jurassic Park in the way the aliens are portrayed, and the scene where the female is forced into a cage seems inspired directly by the opening of the 1993 film. That said, the care taken in developing the aliens has not been replicated elsewhere. Props are tacky, and a lot of the CGI used elsewhere is anything but believable, but if you squint a little then the film remains visually pleasing most of the time. Other than that, the production values are pretty standard fare – the action is solid throughout, and the soundtrack is largely unmemorable, but does it’s job in the moment.

The Tomorrow War is by no means the greatest sci-fi ever made, but its unique premise and memorable action sequences make it stand out amongst its competitors in the world of streaming. While it seems like a sequel isn’t on the horizon, I wouldn’t rule out watching the film again some day, which is more than I can say for a lot of streaming originals, and it’s certainly been interesting enough to break into the mainstream discourse among the powerhouse originals churned out on Disney Plus and Netflix. I can’t say I’m recommending it because it’s so good, rather than I’m interested to hear the opinions of others on this divisive little thing, but I’m recommending it nevertheless.

5/10