Review of The Tomorrow War (2021) by Tarekali — 05 Jul 2021

Movies from Streaming studios have a reputation of B quality, but The Tomorrow War is a grade-A contender. The action is breathtaking and whiplash-inducing, in between quieter moments. The time travel dimension echoes Edge of Tomorrow but on a far less iterative scale.

There are even parallels to religious texts and the themes of ancient evils waiting to emerge. The creature design of the ‘spikes’ is somewhat unique and terrifying, even though it's clear there is an amalgamation of other beasts.

It's hard to come up with truly unique forms after the age of HR Giger and Stan Winston. There are certainly inspirations from the Alien series, especially the original from Ridley Scott. Despite all these influences, this movie stands on its own as a formidable action outing.

Chris Pratt is comfortable in his Jurassic World role as a fearless protagonist who wants to do the right thing, especially for his daughter. We can’t expect great depth from him, his range is limited but adequate.

I was surprised instead by the performance of Yvonne Strahovski, who often gets relegated to B movies as a supporting cast. Here instead she rose to the occasion and portrayed a tough leader with great emotional depth and nuance.

JK Simmons stole the show in the end, with his caustic abrasive and absolutely genius jaded veteran role. There was an action scene where he demonstrated brain over brawn in combat, and I clapped out loud.

We should never underplay the sacrifice of common people when faced with a global threat of complete annihilation. The bravery of the supporting cast was well appreciated in the face of certain death.

Amazon made a great action movie that is definitely worth the 2 hours. This is better than some of the stuff that made it to theatres in the past.