The Stream: Earth shatteringly long, predictable, and full of holes

The Big Screen: Good on some creativity and action-packed

The Final Bill: An entertaining movie that seems to never end

– S2S: Movie Review
Director: Chris McKay
Writers: Zach Dean
Stars: Chris Pratt, Yvonne Strahovski, J.K. Simmons
Genre: Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi, Thriller
Rating: PG-13 (a lot of violence and action, inappropriate language)
Runtime: 2 hours 15 minutes
Production Companies: Skydance Media, Lit Entertainment Group, New Republic Pictures
Platform: Amazon Prime (July 2, 2021)

Welcome Back to Stream to Big Screen! This week let’s take a trip to the future to fight The Tomorrow War. This Prime Video summer blockbuster was released for streaming this Independence Day weekend. A sci-fi, action, adventure, thriller what more could a viewer ask for on a holiday weekend. The Tomorrow War depicts a future world in which a group of time-traveling soldiers arrive and ask for help to fight a global war against a deadly alien species. 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 a rag tag crew to rid the world of these aliens. Let’s see if it’s worth watching.

The Tomorrow War has so much potential. I mean just check out the trailer below. It had some creative elements, but then the filmmakers decided to make it as predictable and cliched at every possible moment you’d expect. I mean this is like the greatest mish mosh of summer blockbuster movies I’ve ever seen. If you like any of the movies I’m about to say, you will absolutely like or be entertained by The Tomorrow War. Here we go: this movie was concocted in a lab with remnants of Independence Day, World War Z, Edge of Tomorrow with a little mix of Prometheus. I mean that’s a pretty good line-up… right?! Yeah, but not when you know the everything before they happen. For what it’s worth, the story is sincere at times, but then again, it’s the same story we’ve seen. “I gotta save my daughter…” *boo hoo!* “Oh wow these aliens are dangerous… let’s go do some reckless stuff that doesn’t make sense to stop them.” Shock and awe!

Anyway, Chris Pratt is typically a solid actor, but here he was just Pratt from everything else. He’s part Peter Quill, Grady from Jurassic World and shoot even Emmett Brickowski (just kidding but that made me chuckle). The rest of the cast is ok at best but shout out to J.K. and him bringing extra swag to this flick. They didn’t use him that much but his scenes were worth it. Either way, just like the characters falling in the movie this movie is chalk full of plot holes. Some holes are so big you get Tenet-brain. You ask, “what’s Tenet-brain, S2S?” Tenet-brain, formerly Inception-brain, is when you really start to think about what happens in the movie the movie just gives you a headache and or comes apart at the seams. It’s best to go into a potential Tenet-brain movie with an open and empty mind. Let the movie just entertain you and not inform you. As this movie runs for 2 hours and 15 minutes, they try to inform you a lot and you have to duck and dodge all of the plot holes that might make you think. The movie feels like 4 different movies in one and while that may seem good… it just feels so long.

SUPER LONG STORY short, The Tomorrow War is a solid movie that was just too protracted. Led by Chris Pratt as a less annoying Peter Quill, the movie is entertaining and family friendly with the action and thrills many like to watch. The Tomorrow War absolutely could’ve come to the theaters and done well as a long standing matinee flick but it’s probably better suited as a streaming flick on Amazon Prime with a bowl of popcorn.