The Tomorrow War: An Idiot’s Review

The only thing I know about movies is whether I like them or not, and I mostly prefer watching series. I don’t know all the technical jargon that you would look for to review a movie or in the review of said movie, but let’s give you an idiot’s take on The Tomorrow War, that released on Amazon last week.

I didn’t look at what the critics thought of the movie, as I like to make up my own mind. And here is what the Kaas mind thought…

During a 2022 World Cup Soccer match, which for some reason is played in December, soldiers pitch up on the pitch, heh….errr…with a spectacular light show, immediately rendering all the spectators in the same state of apprehension that I have when getting a text from my ex.

The future needs help! Earth is overrun by a vicious alien species and everything is doomed! Only your mother-in-law refuses to die.

As you can imagine, chaos and panic ensues as people from all over the planet is sent 30 years into the future to fight these b******s. People are getting drafted from all walks of life with no military training whatsoever to be cannon fodder for the beasties, who gobble humans down like you would swallow one of the tekkies served at a braai with Trevor (well done steak, forsooth) as the cook, with only a thick lathering of All Gold tomato sauce to lubricate it.

All Gold on meat? Barbaric, I know…But that’s another kettle of fish.

ANYWAY… Let’s not give away too much for those who haven’t watched it yet.

The Tomorrow War stars Chris Pratt as Dan Forrester, an ordinary school teacher and family man, who happens to be an ex Special Forces soldier, alongside J.K. Simmons as his estranged father, Sam Richardson, Edwin Hodge and Yvonne Strahovski to name a few. Sorry, but telling a vivid tale about every character’s origins, might spoil some of the fun.

To be honest, I really looked forward to watching this as a nice Sunday night movie, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It was entertaining to see them battle the overwhelming odds against an enemy, called Whitespikes, who shoot, well, spikes from tentacle appendages, but are also armed with a set of impressive chompers that would make any T-rex proud. Mindless predators that are fast, hard to kill and attack in overwhelming numbers is not the kind of b******d I would want to face.

As with all Time Travel movies, it has you constantly wondering and drawing up spreadsheets and flow charts on how things happening in the future, might affect the now. It gave me a headache, so I gave up and just went with it. Luckily they don’t really try to confuse you too much or create too many “hang on?” moments.

The movie felt a bit rushed to be honest. It starts off kind of slow and then gains rapid momentum, and the final part that determines the final outcome of humanity’s future, which might have been an awesome adventure in its own right, boss-fight, slight plot twist about the origins of the aliens and all, was obviously downscaled to the obvious time constraints of a two hour or so film.

There seems to be huge gaps that could have been filled out with more detail, if they had more time, which would have made the film much better in my opinion, and the attempts at humour fall a bit flat. Pratt doesn’t bring his A-game with regards to quips, as he did with his Star-Lord character in the Guardians of the Galaxy, but it is also understandable as his character is subjected to a lot of “what is going on?” moments, and he is fed a lot of life altering info in a short matter of time.

It’s not a bad movie at all, with good action sequences and aliens chomping on humans as if they were a rack of ribs, but don’t expect anything ground breaking. It’s fun to watch and has its WTF moments, if you are in the mood for a nice action movie that doesn’t require a lot of thought.

Last Updated: July 7, 2021