People fall out of the sky into a swimming pool in the first scene of The Tomorrow War
In The Tomorrow War, Dan Forester (Chris Pratt), a former soldier and now a high school teacher, returns home in 2022 to watch the football game with his precocious nine-year-old daughter Muri (Ryan Kiera Armstrong). The game is interrupted by a message from 2051, informing the player that the planet is being attacked by aliens and is losing the battle spectacularly. The only way to defeat the aliens appears to be to send soldiers from the present to the future. yay time travel!
Due to the fact that a large proportion of the world’s armies are unable to make the 30-year leap, a global conscription programme is implemented, with civilians being sent into the future to fight the alien hoards.
Because of the mechanics of time travel, only those who have died in this timeline can be recruited to fight in the war of tomorrow. The recruits are trained by people who have not yet been born so that the timeline is not disrupted. One wouldn’t want to add to the TVA’s paperwork, would one?
The recruits, who are in their forties and fifties, are sent to the future for seven days at a time. The aliens, for some reason, return to their nests on the seventh day. They are religious, if nothing else. Forester departs for 2051, much to the dismay of his psychologist wife, Emmy (Betty Gilpin). She asks him to seek assistance from his estranged father, James (J. K. Simmons). With both men snarling angrily at each other, the meeting does not go as planned.
Forester and his crew arrive in 2051 in the midst of all the chaos and other mischief.
Forester and his crew arrive in 2051 in the midst of all the chaos, complete with aliens, flashes, bangs, fires, and other mischief. When he meets Romeo Command, he realises the tough, brilliant young woman is Muri (Yvonne Strahovski).
Despite the fact that they appear to be losing the battle with the aliens, Muri is working on a toxin that will kill the critters and allow everyone to live happily ever after.
The action is fast-paced and relentless, just like the aliens. The humour is standard issue tough talk fueled by testosterone. The aliens are just a tad underwhelming. Despite director Chris McKay’s claims in an interview with this writer that they tried to create a unique alien, they just look like angry, scraggly, toothy versions of the abominable snowman.
We’re not complaining as long as the wormholes connecting different timelines are kept open and running. People fall from the sky into the middle of the action, an ancient glacier in Iceland stands in for Severnaya, and Chris Pratt flexes those happy biceps.
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