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Muri creates a toxin that can kill the Whitespikes. The Whitespikes attack and overrun the base to free the female, and Muri sacrifices herself to send Dan back to the past. Although he returns to 2023 with the toxin, the Jumplink is destroyed. The world interprets the Jumplink's destruction as a sign that the future war is lost.
Muri creates a toxin that can kill the Whitespikes. The Whitespikes attack and overrun the base to free the female, and Muri sacrifices herself to send Dan back to the past. Although he returns to 2023 with the toxin, the Jumplink is destroyed. The world interprets the Jumplink's destruction as a sign that the future war is lost.


While Dan brainstorms with his wife, Emmy, she deduces that the Whitespikes did not arrive in 2048, but came much earlier. Dan consults with Charlie and Martin, a high school student with an interest in volcanoes, and they theorize that the Whitespikes have been on Earth since at least the "[[946 eruption of Paektu Mountain|Millennium Eruption]]" in the year 946, and [[global warming]] caused them to thaw out and emerge from under the ice caps. After the United States Defense Secretary declines to use military resources to prove the theory, Dan leads a mission to Russia with Charlie, Dorian, a few surviving future soldiers, and his estranged father James to take matters into their own hands. The team finds a crashed alien ship at the [[Academy of Sciences Glacier]] on [[Komsomolets Island]]. They debate telling the world about the problem, but decide to end the threat themselves. Once inside, they realize that the Whitespikes are not the aliens themselves, but rather bio-engineered organisms possibly used as a planet-clearing weapon or cattle by another alien race. The team injects five of the dormant Whitespikes with the toxin; this kills the injected ones but wakes the rest of the colony, and most of the team is killed. Dorian, terminally ill with cancer and wanting to die on his own terms, stays behind to blow up the ship with a [[C-4 (explosive)|C-4]] device, and the explosion kills all but one of the Whitespikes. Dan and his father hunt and kill the one female that had escaped, leaving them and Charlie as the team's only survivors.
While Dan brainstorms with his wife, Emmy, she deduces that the Whitespikes did not arrive in 2048, but came much earlier. Dan consults with Charlie and Martin, a high school student with an interest in volcanoes, and they theorize that the Whitespikes have been on Earth since at least the "[[946 eruption of Paektu Mountain|Millennium Eruption]]" in the year 946, and [[global warming]] caused them to thaw out and emerge from under the ice caps. After the United States Defense Secretary declines to use military resources to prove the theory, Dan leads a mission to Russia with Charlie, Dorian, a few surviving future soldiers, and his estranged father James to take matters into their own hands. The team finds a crashed alien ship at the [[Academy of Sciences Glacier]] on [[Komsomolets Island]]. They debate telling the world about the problem, but decide to end the threat themselves. Once inside, they realize that the Whitespikes are not the aliens themselves, but rather bio-engineered organisms possibly used as a planet-clearing weapon or cattle by another alien race. The team injects five of the dormant Whitespikes with the toxin; this kills the injected ones but wakes the rest of the colony, and most of the team is killed. Dorian, terminally ill with cancer and wanting to die on his own terms, stays behind to blow up the ship with [[C-4 (explosive)|C-4]], and the explosion kills all but one of the Whitespikes. Dan and his father hunt and kill the one female that had escaped, leaving them and Charlie as the team's only survivors.


Content knowing that the war is averted and humanity is saved, Dan brings James home to meet his wife and daughter, determined not to make the same mistakes that Muri had warned him about from her future.
Content knowing that the war is averted and that humanity is saved, Dan brings James home to meet his wife and daughter, determined not to make the same mistakes that Muri had warned him about from her future.


==Cast==
==Cast==

Revision as of 01:49, 23 August 2021

The Tomorrow War
Official release poster
Directed byChris McKay
Written byZach Dean
Produced by
Starring
CinematographyLarry Fong
Edited by
Music byLorne Balfe
Production
companies
Distributed byAmazon Studios
Release date
  • July 2, 2021 (2021-07-02)
Running time
138 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$200 million[1][2]

The Tomorrow War is a 2021 American military science fiction action film directed by Chris McKay and starring Chris Pratt. The picture is produced by David Ellison, Dana Goldberg, Don Granger, David S. Goyer, Jules Daly, and Adam Kolbrenner, and written by Zach Dean. The ensemble cast features Chris Pratt, Yvonne Strahovski, J. K. Simmons, Betty Gilpin, Sam Richardson, Edwin Hodge, Jasmine Mathews, Ryan Kiera Armstrong, and Keith Powers. It follows a mix of present-day soldiers and civilians sent into the future to fight an alien army.

Originally set for theatrical release by Paramount Pictures, the film's distribution rights were acquired by Amazon due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and digitally released on July 2, 2021 via Prime Video. The Tomorrow War received mixed reviews from critics, with praise for the concept, action sequences, and performances (particularly Pratt and Richardson), but criticism aimed towards its derivative execution. A sequel is in development.

Plot

In December 2022, biology teacher and former Green Beret, Dan Forester, fails to get a job at a prestigious research center. During the broadcast of the World Cup, soldiers from the year 2051 arrive to warn that humanity is on the brink of extinction due to a war with alien invaders referred to as the "Whitespikes." The Whitespikes will arrive in November 2048 and kill the majority of humanity within three years after their arrival. In response, the world's militaries are sent into the future via a wormhole device called the "Jumplink," but fewer than 30% survive their seven-day deployment, prompting an international draft.

Dan receives a notice that he has been drafted and tells his wife Emmy. She says they should run and talks Dan into visiting his estranged father, a mechanical engineer, for help in removing the draft band attached to his arm. Dan's father left him and his mother after he returned from the Vietnam War because he felt it was dangerous to remain with them, but Dan says he does not want his help and calls him a coward, then leaves. Dan reports to basic training with other draftees where they are briefed from future soldiers about the Whitespikes. Dan deduces with fellow draftee Charlie that in order to prevent a potential time paradox, those drafted have already died before the war starts and those who have come from the future haven't been born yet.

The draftees are sent forward in time to a battlefield on Miami Beach but few survive, having accidentally been dropped high above the city. Romeo Commander, Colonel Forester, orders the draftees to rescue nearby lab personnel before the area is sterilized. They discover the lab personnel are already dead but recover their research. Dan radios command about the situation, and he is told that no help will be sent to rescue the stranded troops. Nearly everyone dies, except for Charlie, Dan, and Dorian, a battle-hardened soldier on his third deployment to the future.

The survivors wake up in a military encampment in the Dominican Republic. Dan reports to Col. Forester, who turns out to be his grown daughter Muri. She requests he accompany her on a mission to capture a female Whitespike, which are rarer than the males typically encountered. They trap and cage the female, only to have hundreds of males descend on their position. As the helicopter with the female lifts off, Dan and Muri escape to a beach and radio for rescue. Muri reveals to Dan that in the past, after he did not get the research center job, he became dissatisfied with his life and abandoned Muri and Emmy. He later died from injuries he sustained in a car crash in 2030. Dan is adamant that he would never abandon his family and resolves to remain with them when he returns to the past. Dan, Muri and the female Whitespike are transported to a fortified oil rig close to Port Nelson, where the Jumplink is located.

Muri creates a toxin that can kill the Whitespikes. The Whitespikes attack and overrun the base to free the female, and Muri sacrifices herself to send Dan back to the past. Although he returns to 2023 with the toxin, the Jumplink is destroyed. The world interprets the Jumplink's destruction as a sign that the future war is lost.

While Dan brainstorms with his wife, Emmy, she deduces that the Whitespikes did not arrive in 2048, but came much earlier. Dan consults with Charlie and Martin, a high school student with an interest in volcanoes, and they theorize that the Whitespikes have been on Earth since at least the "Millennium Eruption" in the year 946, and global warming caused them to thaw out and emerge from under the ice caps. After the United States Defense Secretary declines to use military resources to prove the theory, Dan leads a mission to Russia with Charlie, Dorian, a few surviving future soldiers, and his estranged father James to take matters into their own hands. The team finds a crashed alien ship at the Academy of Sciences Glacier on Komsomolets Island. They debate telling the world about the problem, but decide to end the threat themselves. Once inside, they realize that the Whitespikes are not the aliens themselves, but rather bio-engineered organisms possibly used as a planet-clearing weapon or cattle by another alien race. The team injects five of the dormant Whitespikes with the toxin; this kills the injected ones but wakes the rest of the colony, and most of the team is killed. Dorian, terminally ill with cancer and wanting to die on his own terms, stays behind to blow up the ship with C-4, and the explosion kills all but one of the Whitespikes. Dan and his father hunt and kill the one female that had escaped, leaving them and Charlie as the team's only survivors.

Content knowing that the war is averted and that humanity is saved, Dan brings James home to meet his wife and daughter, determined not to make the same mistakes that Muri had warned him about from her future.

Cast

  • Chris Pratt as James Daniel "Dan" Forester Jr., a biology teacher and former Green Beret First Sergeant who served two tours in Iraq
  • Yvonne Strahovski as Colonel Muri Forester, Dan's adult daughter and a military scientist
    • Ryan Kiera Armstrong as young Muri Forester
  • J. K. Simmons as James Daniel Forester Sr., Dan's estranged father, an anti-government survivalist, mechanical engineer and Vietnam veteran
  • Betty Gilpin as Emmy Forester, Dan's wife and a therapist for returning draftees
  • Sam Richardson as Charlie, a draftee with a PhD in Earth and Atmospheric Sciences
  • Edwin Hodge as Dorian, a cancer-stricken draftee on his third tour of duty
  • Jasmine Mathews as Lieutenant Hart, a future soldier who warned the world during the World Cup
  • Keith Powers as Major Greenwood, Muri’s executive officer

In addition, Mary Lynn Rajskub and Mike Mitchell portray draftees Norah and Cowan, respectively, while Seth Schenall portrays Martin, Dan's student.

Production

Development

It was announced in February 2019 that Chris Pratt was in negotiations to star in the film (then known as Ghost Draft) and that it would be directed by Chris McKay.[3] In July, Yvonne Strahovski was cast.[4] J. K. Simmons, Betty Gilpin, Sam Richardson, Theo Von, Jasmine Mathews, Keith Powers were cast in August,[5][6][7][8][9] with Mary Lynn Rajskub, Edwin Hodge, and additional cast joining in September.[10][11] The movie was later retitled The Tomorrow War.[12] Creature designer Ken Barthelmey designed the film's aliens.[13]

Filming

Filming began on September 1, 2019 in Lincolnton, Georgia, Atlanta, and Iceland. The film was wrapped up on January 12, 2020.[14][15]

Release

The film was initially scheduled for release on December 25, 2020 by Paramount Pictures, but due to the COVID-19 pandemic it was rescheduled to July 23, 2021, taking the release date of Mission: Impossible 7, then later pulled from the schedule again.[16][17][18][19]

In January 2021, Amazon Studios was in final talks to acquire the film for around $200 million.[20] In April 2021, it was announced that Amazon had officially acquired the film, and released it on Amazon Prime Video in 240 countries worldwide on July 2, 2021.[21]

Reception

Audience viewership

Samba TV reported that 2.41 million households watched the film from July 2–5, the most ever for an Amazon Original tracked by the service. According to Screen Engine's PostVOD summary, the "definite recommend" audience score for the film was 53%, compared to a normal score for a streaming title of 42%.[22] The film continued to top the charts in subsequent weeks, logging 1.222 billion minutes of viewership between July 21–27 (equal to about 885,507 total watches) according to Nielsen ratings.[23]

Critical response

On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 53% based on 184 reviews, with an average rating of 5.7/10. The website's critics consensus reads, "Chris Pratt ably anchors this sci-fi adventure, even if The Tomorrow War may not linger in the memory much longer than today."[24] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 45 out of 100, based on 35 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".[25]

Richard Roeper of Chicago Sun-Times gave the film 2 out of 4 stars and wrote, "The Tomorrow War is an earnest effort to bring something new to the time-travel action genre, but this movie is a 2021 vehicle made of parts from the 2010s and the 1990s and 1980s."[26] IndieWire's David Ehrlich gave the film a C grade, writing, "Which isn't to say that The Tomorrow War is bad — it boasts a clever premise, a killer supporting turn from Sam Richardson, and an uncommonly well-defined sense of place for such a murky CGI gloop-fest... But for all of those laudable attributes, this flavorless loss-leader of a film is neutered by its refusal to put audiences on their heels."[1] John Defore writing for the Hollywood Reporter wrote that "the pic may be missing that certain something that would have made it huge in theaters" but that it is entertaining on Amazon stream anyway and praised Pratt's acting.[27] IGN criticized then described the movie as "Supremely stupid sci-fi", and further stated that Pratt flounders in the movie.[28]

Sequel

In July 2021, Deadline Hollywood reported Skydance and Amazon were in talks about producing a sequel, with director Chris McKay, screenwriter Zach Dean, and stars Chris Pratt, Yvonne Strahovski, Betty Gilpin, Sam Richardson, Edwin Hodge, and J.K. Simmons all returning.[29]

References

  1. ^ a b Ehrlich, David (July 1, 2021). "'The Tomorrow War' Review: A Bland Chris Pratt Fights the Future in Would-Be Amazon Blockbuster". IndieWire. Retrieved July 1, 2021.
  2. ^ Levin, Robert (July 2, 2021). "'The Tomorrow War': Chris Pratt goes back to the future". Newsday.
  3. ^ McNary, Dave (February 13, 2019). "Chris Pratt in Talks to Star in Science-Fiction Movie 'Ghost Draft'". Variety. Archived from the original on January 14, 2021. Retrieved September 2, 2019.
  4. ^ Kroll, Justin (July 18, 2019). "'Handmaid's Tale's' Yvonne Strahovski Joins Chris Pratt in 'Ghost Draft' (EXCLUSIVE)". Variety. Retrieved September 2, 2019.
  5. ^ Kit, Borys (August 19, 2019). "J.K. Simmons in Talks to Join Chris Pratt in Sci-Fi Thriller 'Ghost Draft' (Exclusive)". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved September 2, 2019.
  6. ^ N'Duka, Amanda (August 20, 2019). "'Veep's Sam Richardson Joins Chris Pratt In 'Ghost Draft' Sci-Fi". Deadline Hollywood. Retrieved September 2, 2019.
  7. ^ D'Alessandro, Anthony (August 21, 2019). "Stand-Up Comedian Theo Von Joins Chris Pratt In Skydance-Paramount's 'Ghost Draft'". Deadline Hollywood. Retrieved September 2, 2019.
  8. ^ N'Duka, Amanda (August 23, 2019). "'Ghost Draft': 'Sweetbitter' Actress Jasmine Mathews Joins Skydance Sci-Fi Thriller". Deadline Hollywood. Retrieved September 2, 2019.
  9. ^ Kit, Borys (August 26, 2019). "'What/If' Actor Keith Powers Joins Chris Pratt in Skydance's 'Ghost Draft' (Exclusive)". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved September 2, 2019.
  10. ^ Kit, Borys (September 4, 2019). "Mary Lynn Rajskub, Edwin Hodge Join Chris Pratt in Sci-Fi Thriller 'Ghost Draft' (Exclusive)". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved November 2, 2020.
  11. ^ N'Duka, Amanda (September 4, 2019). "'Ghost Draft': Paramount/Skydance Sci-Fi Film Adds More To Cast". Deadline Hollywood. Retrieved November 2, 2020.
  12. ^ Gemmill, Allie (November 9, 2019). "Chris Pratt Shares Set Photo & New Title From the Movie Formerly Known as 'Ghost Draft'". Collider. Retrieved November 9, 2019.
  13. ^ Berriman, Ian (16 June 2021). "Enlist in The Tomorrow War with the new issue of SFX". Games Radar. Retrieved 17 June 2021.
  14. ^ "Ghost Draft - Production Listing". Backstage. Retrieved September 2, 2019.
  15. ^ "Chris Pratt's Next Movie "Ghost Draft" To Film in Atlanta (REPORT)". Project Casting. April 6, 2019. Retrieved September 2, 2019.
  16. ^ McClintock, Pamela (November 11, 2019). "Chris Pratt's Sci-Fi Thriller 'The Tomorrow War' Lands Christmas 2020 Release". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved November 11, 2019.
  17. ^ McClintock, Pamela (April 2, 2020). "'A Quiet Place Part II' Sets New September Release Date". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved April 2, 2020.
  18. ^ D'Alessandro, Anthony (April 2, 2020). "'Top Gun Maverick' Flies To Christmas Corridor, 'SpongeBob' Eyes Late Summer, 'Quiet Place II' To Debut Labor Day". Deadline Hollywood. Archived from the original on April 2, 2020. Retrieved April 2, 2020.
  19. ^ Rubin, Rebecca (April 24, 2020). "'Mission: Impossible' Sequels Get Pushed Back". Variety. Archived from the original on April 25, 2020. Retrieved April 24, 2020.
  20. ^ D'Alessandro, Anthony (January 12, 2021). "Chris Pratt's 'The Tomorrow War' Sci-Fi Movie Shopped To Streamers By Skydance; Amazon Eyeing For £1– Update". Deadline Hollywood. Retrieved January 13, 2021.
  21. ^ D’Alessandro, Anthony (April 7, 2021). "Chris Pratt Sci-Fi Movie 'The Tomorrow War' Sets Summer Release On Amazon". Deadline Hollywood. Retrieved April 7, 2021.
  22. ^ D’Alessandro, Anthony (July 6, 2021). "'The Tomorrow War' Watched By 2.4M U.S. Households, Says Samba TV". Deadline Hollywood. Retrieved July 7, 2021.
  23. ^ https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/tomorrow-war-nielsen-streaming-ratings-1234990388/
  24. ^ "The Tomorrow War (2021)". Rotten Tomatoes. Fandango Media. Retrieved July 23, 2021.
  25. ^ "The Tomorrow War Reviews". Metacritic. Fandom, Inc. Retrieved July 23, 2021.
  26. ^ Reoper, Richard (July 1, 2021). "'Tomorrow War' little more than standard-issue action fare". Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved July 1, 2021.
  27. ^ Defore, John (2 July 2021). "Chris Pratt in 'The Tomorrow War': Film Review". Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 2 July 2021.
  28. ^ "The Tomorrow War Review". IGN Southeast Asia. July 1, 2021.
  29. ^ D’Alessandro, Anthony (July 8, 2021). "'The Tomorrow War 2': Amazon & Skydance Already In Talks For Sequel Reteaming With Chris Pratt, Director Chris McKay & More". Deadline Hollywood. Retrieved July 8, 2021.
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