Dir: Chris Mckay (12, 138 mins)
Chris Pratt heads up this sci-fi blockbuster that, although tonally dubious with a premise full of logic holes, still provides some strong action beats. Pratt plays Dan Forrester: everyman, science teacher, apparently great dad, ex-military, frustrated in the job market but always there to play with his daughter and banter with wife Betty Gilpin. Matters go illogical when the World Cup is interrupted by soldiers from the future telling them the world is going to end in 2051 because of an alien threat. The future needs people from the past to fight the threat years from now and ordinary citizens are drafted to jump into the dystopia for week-long tours of duty. Not many make it back.
Eventually, Pratt is drafted, but not before he has a scene with his estranged (and buff) dad JK Simmons, who then disappears until their father/son issues can be worked out an hour later. Pratt leaves his family and finds himself in charge of some inexperienced grunts – including a good-value Sam Richardson (Veep, the excellent Werewolves Within), a wasted Mary Lynn Rajskub (24) and other, even more sketchily realized charcters. The messy plot then has them trying to retrieve a serum which could destroy the vicious, nastily realised ‘white spikes’ – who sport tentacles, T-Rex-tiny arms and scary teethy faces, shooting, yes, white spikes as destruction reigns around them.
The odds are ludicrously stacked against Forrester and co, even as he meets a tough military commander and science boffin – the always solid and capable Yvonne Strahovski – who may have more links to his past than initially thought. Mankind has days left: can they save the day? Well, yes and no. The action unfolds in a massive CGI set piece on an oil rig, with some hellish imagery and icy Russian wastes as the plot hops around and hopes no one thinks twice about time paradoxes.
Wearing its many influences on its sleeve – everything from Alien to The Thing to The Terminator to Edge Of Tomorrow – and with some bizarre quippage amidst intense, often gnarly mayhem, The Tomorrow War feels very scattershot. Pratt also seems rather distant, unsure whether he can be funny or just blandly stoic when the future of the world is at stake. Director Chris McKay seems happier doing the action rather than coping with Zach Dean’s cookie-cutter script, but it still boasts some great monsters and full-blown suspenseful sequences. It’s a shame that the human story feels less resonant, full of cliché and underwhelming: there’s a harder, shorter sci-fi film here, struggling to get out.
Streaming now via Amazon Prime
words KEIRON SELF