While I’ve heard film fans moan about the glut of mega franchises, sequels, prequels and reimaginings that we get in cinemas these days and that there isn’t anything original on offer, those kinda franchise films are box office gold while more original ideas don’t generally fare very well. In a recent interview Chris Pratt said that he wanted to do something a little bit original and boy has he accomplished that with The Tomorrow War. 

 

But you’ve gotta do him and original film ideas out there a favour - watch the heck out of this, stream it over and over on repeat. And then these kinda movies will get made. While there might be a couple of slight but forgivable plot holes, The Tomorrow War is a totally original bombastic blockbuster with some of the most edge of your seat action sequences to crash onto our screens in a long time. A sure fire summer hit. 

 

The world is stunned when a group of time travellers arrive from the year 2051 to deliver an urgent message: Thirty years in the future, mankind is losing a global war against a deadly alien species. The only hope for survival is for soldiers and civilians from the present to be transported to the future and join the fight. Among those recruited is high school teacher and family man Dan Forester (Chris Pratt). Determined to save the world for his young daughter, Dan teams up with a brilliant scientist (Yvonne Strahovski) and his estranged father (J.K. Simmons) in a desperate quest to rewrite the fate of the planet.

 

While The Tomorrow War borrows inspiration from cinema blockbuster classics from Back to the Future to Alien with a splash of The Terminator and Independence Day thrown in for good measure, it's certainly a beast of its own creation. The narrative cuts across different time lines and while this could have been problematic for the audience to follow in the hands of someone less skilled, in the hands of director Chris McKay it is a wonder to behold. 

 

There isn’t unnecessary exposition here, enough for us to figure out what's going on, and then we’re thrown straight into action sequence after action sequence. It’s intense, inventive and gloriously exhausting with some of the most uniquely rendered and ferocious aliens to roar onto our screens in recent times. It is one hell of a ride. 

 

In humanity's race to find something to destroy these aliens who are slowly but surely killing off humanity, we find in The Tomorrow’s War an apt allegory for our Covid times and are once again reminded of the importance of family, second chances and scientific endeavour. 

 

Chris Pratt is on top leading man form, proving once again that he not only has the acting chops but the full blown charisma to be an action star in his own right without being attached to a franchise. 

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While there might be a couple of slight but forgivable plot holes, The Tomorrow War is a totally original bombastic blockbuster with some of the most edge of your seat action sequences to crash onto our screens in a long time. A sure fire summer hit.