Tomorrow War (Review)
The Tomorrow War is a 2021 American military science fiction action film. The film stars Chris Pratt (who also executively produced), Yvonne Strahovski, J. K. Simmons, Betty Gilpin, and follows a group of present-day soldiers who are sent into the future to fight an alien army.
In December 2022, biology teacher and former Green Beret, Dan Forester, fails to get a job at a prestigious research center. While he is watching the World Cup at a Christmas party, soldiers from the year 2051 arrive to warn that humanity is on the brink of extinction due to alien invaders: the Whitespikes. In response, members of the world’s militaries are sent into the future, but fewer than 20% survive, prompting a worldwide draft.
After a year of the draft and a growing anti-war movement, there is little hope for humanity’s survival. Dan receives a notice that he has been drafted and reports with other draftees to basic training. Dan deduces with fellow draftee Charlie that in order to prevent a paradox, those drafted have already died before the war starts…. no spoilers.
I give it a 9 out of a possible 10. It was released on Amazon Prime today. I screened the film at home. Trailer
The Big Date (time machine flashback)
It’s 1957 and Bob arrives to pick up his date. Peggy Sue’s Father invites him in.
He asks Bob what they plan on doing.
Bob politely responds that they will probably just go to the malt shop or to a drive-in.
Peggy Sue’s father suggests, “Why don’t you kids go out and screw? I hear all the kids are doing it.”
Bob is shocked. “Excuse me, Sir?”
“Oh yes, Peggy Sue really likes to screw. She’d screw all night if we let her.”
Just then, Peggy Sue comes downstairs and announces she is ready to go. Bob smiles.
About 20 minutes later, a thoroughly disheveled Peggy Sue rushes back into the house, slams the door, and screams at her father,
“Dad! The Twist! It’s called the Twist!”
I’ve determined to sign back up for Amazon.
My quitting hasn’t seemed to make a dent in their bottom line.
And I want to watch that movie.
I was thinking the same thing about the movie.
You can also watch Bosch.
My brother’s been nagging me on that.
You’ve convinced me.
And I want to watch Sneaky Pete again.
The twist it’s called the Twist. I had some dealings with an old Jewish gentlemen in Mobile Alabama when I was in my 20s. To say he was not fond of knee grows is to put it mildly. He once told me that many terms that originate in the Black community , moved into common language quickly but the meanings changed. The two he mentioned specifically were terms for fornicating. Rock and Roll, and Juking , as in Juke Joint. Don’t know for sure but certainly plausible.
As to the Tomorrow War, I watched it at my son’s house last night. I give it points for good CGI effects but there seemed to be a lot of logical inconsistencies; although that might have been the rum and coke.
There were a lot of logical inconsistencies, but I found it to be entertaining.
Unless you mean rum and cocaine (lots of it) it wasn’t your recreational chemicals. There were big plot holes. But the movie was mostly enjoyable. Pratt and Strahovski present as likable (or admirable) characters and have good screen chemistry together. And WTF happened with J K Simmons? Is there some trend of older actors getting buff? Because he looks like he stepped off of the set of The Expendables Volume XII, and that’s not how I remember him from, say, The Accountant.
Trying to avoid spoilers, I’ll just say that The Tomorrow War was surprisingly un-pozzed. Sure the cast was proportionally high in brown and black, and the military trainers from the future were tiny little women of color for the most part (plus some skinny nonwhite men), but the film was surprisingly devoid of antiwhite or antifamily propaganda. The POC trainers spoke standard English and behaved like more or less normal people, rather than throwing ghetto mannerisms or attitude. There was no ritual humiliation of white men, there were no 105-lb women physically overpowering 200-lb men.
There were only two potentially pozzed things I remember. First was a socially-awkward Black teenager being the one to figure out an important puzzle (but I’ll take that as a random occurrence rather than enemy propaganda since it was pretty much a one off). The second was a fragment of speech from a politician to the effect of “you won’t be fighting for your country, you’ll be fighting for the world.” Ten years ago I would have not even noticed that, but in these dark times I’m primed to consider that sort of statement New World Order propaganda.
Finally, in Act II (or III depending on how you divide up the film) there’s a passing shot of flags on the “Great Redoubt” which I make out to be, in order, USA, PR China, Australia, Germany, Republic of Korea, Russia, UK. It’d be interesting to see how they came up with that particular list and that order.
Have you seen J K Simmons in Counterpart?
It was pretty good.
Typical time travel paradoxes.
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