The Tomorrow War

Directed by Chris McKay, The Tomorrow War follows Chris Pratt’s Dan Forester as he’s conscripted into a futuristic war against vicious aliens bent on eliminating the human species. It’s an appealingly larger-than-life setup that’s employed to sporadically watchable yet predominantly mediocre effect by McKay, as the filmmaker, working from Zach Dean’s screenplay, delivers a hopelessly bloated, erratically-paced disappointment that’s really only effective in fits and starts – with the far-from-streamlined atmosphere compounded by a meandering narrative and aggressively overlong running time. (There’s little doubt, ultimately, that the 138-minute picture could and should have topped out at around an hour and a half.) The movie’s relatively watchable vibe, then, is due almost entirely to its inherently compelling premise and raft of agreeable, charismatic performances, with, in terms of the latter, Pratt’s commanding star turn matched by a pleasantly off-kilter supporting cast that includes Mary Lynn Rajskub, Sam Richardson, and Betty Gilpin. (J. K. Simmons undoubtedly (and handily) steals his scant few scenes as Dan’s tough-as-nails father.) And although the picture does contain its fair share of compelling, suspenseful sequences (eg Dan and his fellow draftee’s initial arrival in the future), The Tomorrow War builds towards a predictably larger-than-life (and rather endless) third act that ensures it concludes on as underwhelming a note as one could envision – which is a shame, really, given the potential afforded by the film’s promising opening stretch.

** out of ****

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