What if you had to fight aliens in the future? Yes, you heard me, you have to go to the future to fight aliens in order to save your world. Now you know the meaning behind the title The Tomorrow War and it’s not as bad as it sounds. The new movie hitting Amazon 4th of July weekend in 2021 is enjoyable and as we embark on the 25th anniversary of another great alien invasion movie, Independence Day. I’m reminded of the fact that all alien invasion movie seem a little ridiculous at first. Sometimes the best movies started out with a ludicrous premise and then the action and the story itself makes it into a good movie. Now let me start off by saying that this film may not be as iconic as Independence Day, only time will tell, but an alien invasion movie starring Chris Pratt, Star Lord himself, it’s at least going to be entertaining. The basic story is there will be an alien invasion in 30 years and in order to fight that war they must go back in time and find human beings that they can transport to the future after installing the first conscription act or draft since the Vietnam War. Low and behold, Chris Pratt’s character who is also a doctor and engineer gets conscripted to fight because he has military training. Sounds kind of boring, until you find out why he was chosen and who his commanding officer is in the future. No, I’m not going to spoil that for you…you will just have to watch this movie during the 4th of July weekend either before or after you watch Independence Day!

First, let’s start with the aliens. Any kind of alien can be awesome if they’re monstrous just like the aliens in the movie Alien and James Cameron’s Aliens where they and just ingest themselves into your body and you serve as a host. They were awesome then they can be just as ridiculous as cockroach type aliens from Starship Troopers. The aliens in The Tomorrow War are pretty cool and just on the right side of scary, so that definitely makes this movie worth watching. The action is pretty good, especially in the third act. It isn’t just a straight shoot’em up or blow’em up movie… there is a predator-type quality to hunting the aliens and the aliens hunting humans. In a lot of ways, I felt like this would be a great video game that I want to play. Earlier this year we reviewed the game Outriders… I almost feel like this story should have been the story in that game which not only makes me want to watch the movie again, but play it as video game. Chris Pratt is outstanding as well as Yvonne Strahovski. And JK Simmons pretty much steals the show as he usually does. The performances are good and that’s what makes this movie worth watching despite the fact that you’re dealing with a time-traveling alien invasion movie, yeah I know how that sounds!

 Now, the danger of it doing any movie that deals with time travels is you’re bound to get it wrong, I know you can almost hear Doc Brown from Back to the Future 2 talking about changing the future and creating an alternate timeline. There’s lots of missteps and a lot of scientific points that seem to get glossed over just to tell an action story with aliens. If you can ignore that then you’ll enjoy this movie. But then again does anybody ever really tell a time travel story correctly. Not even Star Trek always gets it right! If you’re a nerd like us then you pay attention to the finer details, but then again sometimes you have to ignore those details. The biggest problem I have with this film is I feel like there’s a lot of plot points that are missing, a lot of things that you can’t explain in a 2-hour movie, but they try anyway. I’d be lying if I didn’t say that I had lots of questions at the end of it. Maybe I just need to watch it more than once, maybe that’s the writer’s and director’s intention. I almost feel like you could have done a limited series  on Amazon or even Netflix to tell a bigger story. Then again, maybe there’s going to be a trilogy out of all this. Like for example, you briefly try to explain why the aliens are there, but it’s a short simple answer. I feel like that needs more explaining. This is a story that’s getting crammed into 2 hours and it feels like it. One of the most brilliant things regarding a sequel to a film that happened a few years ago was when Blade Runner 2049 came out, to explain what had happened up to that movie, they made little shorts. Maybe that’s something they could have done to tell this story or maybe again, do a limited series! It really feels like a bigger story and somehow we’re just skimming the surface to make it a 2 hour movie. When you have something like that,  then really all you’re getting is an action movie where the plot doesn’t matter. But great Sci-Fi movies especially alien invasion movies shouldn’t just be an action movie. There’s always a better story to tell. Like a good old-fashioned be Sci-Fi movie, maybe you don’t really need a huge plot to tell an entertaining story and that’s where I think the film The Tomorrow War blurs that line between great Sci-Fi and B-Sci-Fi films. This doesn’t mean I’m telling you to not watch it, it’s a good one for streaming services and it’s worth checking out.

There’s a lot that could have made this a great Sci-Fi film, but it does come up short in a lot of ways which makes it just an okay film. And that doesn’t really matter when it comes to watching it on Amazon or not. Like a previous film on amazon, Coming to America 2, it’s not great and it doesn’t have to be in order to be entertaining. Plus, when we examine the value of movies and whether it’s worth paying a full-price movie ticket versus just watching it on a streaming service, The Tomorrow War is perfect for Amazon. At the end of the day, the movie doesn’t do enough to tell this great massive life-changing story, but it will entertain you and that’s all it needs to do. Chris Pratt and the rest of the cast are really good and because you won’t be seeing it in a theater, you won’t feel let down because it’s just an okay film. But really, sometimes, all we need is just an okay film instead of a film that has too much hype and we hope it’s going to be great only to be disappointed later. I didn’t expect much what this film and I definitely wasn’t disappointed and yes, I will certainly be watching it again, especially when doing a double feature about alien invasion movies because, like another film that we reviewed this year, Operation: Rainfall, it’s perfect for that as well. Even though it’s not the best Sci-Fi movie I’ve ever seen, I didn’t waste 2 hours watching it and neither will you. You will certainly be entertained and that makes having an Amazon Prime account worth it so check out Chris Pratt in The Tomorrow War, it may not be the next guardians of the galaxy, but you won’t go wrong with checking this film out!