The Tomorrow War Review

 

30 years from now in the year 2051 I’ll be 52 years old and who knows what my life will look like then, but in Chris Pratt’s science-fiction epic The Tomorrow War the future is a dark, dangerous, and treacherous place not to be trifled with. Directed by Chris McKay The Tomorrow War follows Chris Pratt as Dan Forester, a family-man high school biology teacher with an ex-military background who has his world upended when time travelers from the future draft him to fight in their future war in the year 2051 against an alien threat that promises mass extinction of the human species as we know it. The Tomorrow War is an incredibly visceral and exciting as well as emotionally poignant and thought-provoking science-fiction thriller that is masterfully brought to life by its dynamic lead stars in Chris Pratt and Yvonne Strahovski. 

 

 WARNING: SPOILER ALERT - WATCH THE MOVIE FIRST

The action begins in the distant future of Christmas 2022 as Chris Pratt’s character Dan Forester leads a quiet but peaceful life with his family with his lovely wife and 8-year-old daughter Muri. Forester loves his family but isn’t happy with where he is at in life, his failure to get a coveted job in the private sector driving him to relate to his family, “I know I’m meant to do something special with my life”, while watching a soccer match with them. His daughter Muri reassures him everything will be OK, Forester is grateful for the kind words but pretty sure it should be him telling her that not the other way around. And just as much as March of 2020 was a shock to the status quo of our world, the arrival of time travelers in the middle of a soccer match creates the same feeling of the rug being pulled up out from under one in the path that is life. The time travelers announce to the world that there's a war raging in the year 2051 pitting the human species against a deadly and vicious alien invasion that has so devastated the numbers of the human population that they have been forced to travel back to the past to recruit soldiers for the future war. Forester wonders aloud to himself, “Is this a joke?” This moment very much humanizes Forester and reminds me of a family-man high school history teacher I had who very well may have reacted in the same manner were he in that same impossible situation. However, the story takes another turn I was not expecting as one year passes taking us to the Christmas season of 2023 in which the world is in vast disarray in its drafting of soldiers into the future war leaving people in the present without hope in the absence of any good news about the continual war. Again the COVID parallels seem uncanny here with us here over a year into the pandemic and even though things are somewhat back to normal the world is still divided in its actions. 

 

 

The day finally does come through when Forester is drafted to fight in the war in a process that is very chaotic and dehumanizing during which the everyman learns from his time-traveling superiors that he’ll be dead by 2030. Barely able to process all this information Forester is informed his tour of duty in the war will be for one week and he is tagged with a hefty tracking device making him a prisoner to the war or in the event that he runs his place being taken by his family. Faced with having to say goodbye to his family, Forester is urged by his wife to see his father once more if not for his sake than for his daughter's. Reluctantly he agrees and goes to see his father James played by J.K. Simmons. Simmons is ripped and a mountain of physical intimidation as he transforms himself into an ex-military off-the-grid type in this role but he also plays the dynamic between him and his son superbly. Forester blames his dad for abandoning him and his mom when he was younger, and the pain is real for him as his father continuously sends Christmas cards to his family in an effort to reconnect with his son and hopefully his granddaughter. Forester doesn’t think his dad deserves that second chance but James iterates that Forester doesn’t know what went down between him and his mother. The father and son on opposite sides from each other Forester tells his dad to stay away from his family as he goes off to war. 

Forester is teamed up with an array of interesting characters as he is prepared to go to war including Dorian, a gruff and sincere operator, and Charlie an R&D head and reluctant action hero serving as the comedic foil to Forester’s team. Training is cut short though when the war has other plans and the draftees are sent into the future ahead of schedule. Forester reaching the future is sent into the middle of the action with his coordinates misplaced as he drops hard into a swimming pool amidst a war being engaged in its full chaotic effect around him.

 

Before long he is put in communication with his commanding officer Romeo Command played by Yvonne Strahovski. Thrown into the deep end Romeo sends Forester out on a rescue mission for her men which finds Chris Pratt’s everyman action-hero using his ex-military background and humanity to try and keep his team alive as best as possible as they wade the dangerous streets of Miami. Their introduction to the alien species is as terrifying and suspenseful as ever as the design and look of the aliens is truly a work of art in the CGI department and excellently conveys the sense of dread that these characters face in this horrific war. Surviving the mission by the skin of his teeth but losing many of the members of his team sans Dorian and Charlie, Forester is introduced to Romeo Command who goes by Colonel Forester. “Forester, is that with one r as well?”, asks the dogged family-man action hero to his commanding officer. She reveals it is as in fact, she is his daughter Muri in the future all grown-up. This throws Forester for a loop, seeing his daughter at virtually the same age he is as the last time he saw her she was 9-years-old. Muri is quick to make it clear though that she didn’t bring him back out of a sense of sentimentality or a need to reconnect with her father but because the urgency of the mission demanded it. Respecting this Forester works together with his brilliant soldier/scientist daughter who is just as capable in the field as she is in the lab. Yvonne Strahovski does an incredible job of bringing to life this character as she embodies all the fierce qualities of her action-hero but at the same time conveys the character journey of this woman having to face a younger version of her father knowing the outcome of her past and his future all too well to amazing effect.

 

 

As the father and daughter duo work together they face the dangerous and hostile enemy in a dying world and the truth between what went down between them and what causes Muri so much pain comes out as that bond develops between them in the field. Forester learns that his selfish desire to do something special with his life caused him to walk away from his family and his life ended tragically in a car crash, Muri at 16-years-old forced to watch her father die before her eyes. I can’t say enough about the impressive dramatic portrayals of this Back to The Future-esque father and daughter time-traveling duo by Chris Pratt and Yvonne Strahovski as both effectively bring real emotional nuance to their roles as Forester battles with his own mortality and personal struggle and Muri deals with her own past before her very eyes. 

 

 

They are able to develop a toxin to kill the alien species thanks to Muri’s scientific genius inspired by her father at a young age and unfortunately, this means Forester has to leave his daughter behind to go back to the present to mass-produce the toxin to kill the alien threat and stop the war from ever happening. Forester promises he will come back for her but those words come to no avail as in the heat of battle he watches his daughter die in action and in a desperate attempt to save her is teleported back to the present his tour of duty completed. 

 

 

The link to the future severed after the climactic battle that saw his daughter die in the line of duty he is forced to try and save the world from the present but nobody will help him as the world is divided and without proof, he is on his own. So he turns to his dad, James, who has the resources to go to the snow-covered birthplace of the aliens who lay in hibernation awaiting their emergence in the year 2048 to lay waste to the world. The battle is one not without consequence as Dorian sacrifices himself in an explosive blast and Forester and his dad face off against a fierce beast in a final showdown that acts as both a sharply executed scene of suspense and a father-son character development moment as the two work together to bring an end to the alien threat for good. The world is back at peace with the eradication of the war and Forester, reunited with his family, introduces his dad to Muri for the first time. His family is whole now and in a voice-over, he reflects that his future was always in front of him in the form of his family.  

 

The Tomorrow War is certainly a pulse-pounding rollercoaster of a ride but is also a great family drama and one that really showcases the talents of its chief leads in Christ Pratt, Yvonne Strahovski, and J.K. Simmons. Simmons does great character work in a role that echoes the estranged father-son relationship between Indy and his father played by Sean Connery in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Chris Pratt is a great everyman as always and brings a heavy dose of emotional reality to the part as even though his story goal as a character is to fight the aliens he is not merely a stock action-hero but one who is simultaneously battling his own future and morality and the consequences of his own actions in the midst of this great science-fiction dystopian premise. Yvonne Strahovski is a scene-stealer in this picture as she perfectly evokes the commanding presence of an heroic protagonist we know she is capable of from her time on Chuck but also as well makes you believe in her as a character with a real emotional core to her against her steely exterior.

 

 

Deadline has reported that The Tomorrow War 2 is already in the works with Amazon & Skydance reteaming with director Chris McKay and star Chris Pratt to bring a sequel to fruition. It makes sense why they are doing a sequel because the movie was a hit on Amazon Prime but it did feel like the story could have ended there with Forester’s family being made whole again at the end of the film but at the same time there is a lot they could do with a sequel to progress these characters and this world and deliver an even better film. It would be great to see J.K. Simmons back as Chris Pratt’s dad and if they could figure out a way to bring back Yvonne Strahovski back into the fold that would be fantastic as she was the emotional center of the film. It's possible they could explore alternate timelines in the sequel or something like that and that could bring Pratt and Strahovksi back together to continue their great onscreen chemistry together and further the story of these two characters and evolve their father-daughter relationship with the addition of J.K. Simmons to tell a story not only with a sophisticated and intriguing science-fiction premise in the followup but a great character-driven family story to properly build on the theme of the first installment. Perhaps the sequel will capitalize on the Christmas season in the future by embedding that into the storyline? Regardless of where Chris McKay goes with the sequel, it’ll be a highly-anticipated film of mine for sure if the quality of it is anywhere near as good as the first one is. So in closing, The Tomorrow War is a science-fiction epic that delivers on suspense and thrills but also on great characters that keep you emotionally invested throughout the rollercoaster of a ride that this motion picture is.