The Tomorrow War
Premise - A worldwide draft is sending humans into combat thirty years into the future, the year 2051, to help save the human race in an impending war against aliens. With the 2051 human population down to less than 500,000, the only hope to build numbers was to create a time machine into the past to recruit humans who were already dead by 2051.
Review - I'll admit, it's a hell of a clever and crazy premise. The hardest part is trying to wrap my head around the mechanics of the time travel, as any time travel premise is susceptible to plotholes and paradoxes. The film did a decent job of explaining the rules of time travel, why they were only able to create a wormhole that went back 30 years and couldn't make anymore, and why time is still always moving forward in both timelines - but still. I have some questions. How can they change time? I understand the idea of jumping forwards in time, but every time someone goes backwards, does that not change the future they were just residing in?
Because, spoiler, the climax of this movie is main character Dan going back to stop the alien war from ever starting to begin with. But then, if he does that, then he never would have gotten the antidote, because he only got the antidote from the alien war happening, right? So, head is spinning. Don't think too hard, I think it's just that everything that happened in the past is there to stay, including the past that was altered by the future, as confusing as that sounds.
I know apocalyptic stories like this about the end of the human race are meant to get the heart pumping and kick humans into survival gear. I always watch these movies with an intense sadness, however, more than anything else. The end of the human race is sadder than it is scary to me, at this point, with climate change. And this film does a good job of tying the aliens into the impact of human-generated climate change. So even during these all-out shoot-out scenes, I was just kind of sad for everyone involved. Luckily, sadness is an intentional piece of the film, tying on the emotional pull of our main character's relationship with his daughter. Repairing family relationships, and finding forgiveness and second chances after a family member leaves, is a repetitive theme across the different generations and really ties together the time travel with the greater emotional message. (82/100)
Quote - "Second chances are really hard to come by"
What to watch for - Thirty years into the future, the daughter is played by Yvonne Strahovski, who stars as the beautiful and talented Sarah Walker in Chuck, one of my favorite characters of all time. And so it was fantastically nostalgic to see her in action again.
If you liked this film, I'd recommend White House Down! (Buff guy action movie with a daughter trope)
Directed by Chris McKay
Distributed by Amazon Prime
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