The Tomorrow War (2021)

Dan's one stubborn man! And this movie's all about family.

Well, aliens too, but mostly family.

You'd think with Chris Pratt and that other guy (I wish I didn't wait so long with my review drafts - forgot who I was thinking of here) there'd be more comedy in this movie, but it's quite serious, which is strange considering there's Chris Pratt, so sometimes you just can't take him entirely serious after all. He just doesn't have that serious kind of look does he?

He does great here though, as does his in-movie daughter, and together they save the world from an impending alien threat in ways you wouldn't expect. First in the future; then back on their home world. Spoiler alert.

The alien nest at the end's a bit cliché.

The time jumping thing's been done before too.

The water fortress however - and alien vessel - and a lot of the visual elements feel new, and their running through the red smoke and throughout abandoned buildings in a dead city of future USA... it feels good. It looks good. The atmosphere's there.

For an action aficionado you can't not enjoy it, and I shan't spoil things like that moment when they fall through the sky but... whoops.

Yupp. There are some good scenes.

I really have no complaints, save for maybe the Transformer-like alien sound effects - re-used yet again here in new ways, and the new but also familiar alien designs, and a lot of other familiar elements that seem to cycle through most sci-fi movies of the sort these days.

It's a bit like how pop songs keep hitting the same notes and melodies to make people like them. Because they feel familiar, and invoke a certain sense of nostalgia, or belonging, or whatever kind of sensation it is you're looking for when you watch a movie like this, or listen to such music...

So in the end this is great, it is. Epic, you could say.

But just like that word now it lacks the packing punch. It feels old already. Even in this fresh future world.

I love it but... are blockbusters nearing the end of the line... or something? It's awesome always, and yet it just doesn't have that special spark.

I wonder why. Maybe it's too intense. Maybe there's too much greatness. Too much of everything.

It does have a beautiful ending. It's a bit more scaled-down then.

 rated 4/5: fo shizzle