Directing: B-
Acting: B
Writing: C+
Cinematography: B-
Editing: C+
Special Effects: B-

If you want to have any hope of really enjoying The Tomorrow War, don’t overthink it. In fact, just don’t think about it at all. Just let it wash over you, and don’t think about how much it outright steals from far better movies before it, from Aliens to Edge of Tomorrow. It also, bizarrely, has a lot in common with completely forgotten alien-invasion action movie Battle: Los Angeles, released ten years ago: it’s a “war movie” about a battle between humans and aliens, and . . . ten years from now, The Tomorrow War will be just as forgotten.

The Tomorrow War does deserve some credit over Battle: Los Angeles, at least. It gives a lot more screen time to the aliens—something it even has over Edge of Tomorrow (2014), even though that’s still a better movie. The Tomorrow War does shy away from some of the more stereotypical casting, with a majority of key supporting parts going to nonwhite actors and women. In particular, the relationship between Dan Forester (Chris Pratt) and his daughter (played by both Ryan Kiera Armstrong and Yvonne Stahovski) is one that far more typically would be between a man and his son in other movies. All that said, it seems worth pointing out that this movie’s hero protagonist remains a straight white guy, to whom all others ultimately defer. The one exception is his daughter, Muri, who is still one of many characters who orbit around him in regards to the plot.

In any event, The Tomorrow War is entertaining enough—for maybe an hour and 45 minutes, anyway—it’s just fundamentally unoriginal, from every angle. The funny thing is, the same could be said of every other movie cited so far to which it owes its existence. Of course, that is technically the case for virtually any movie. The key difference is that those other movies had a new take, or a new twist, on old tropes. Even the seminal 1996 blockbuster alien invasion movie Independence Day openly played with the old tropes it celebrated in a new way—and, ironically, that movie had a Black protagonist, and is the one movie of its ilk that gets specifically name checked in The Tomorrow War: “I’m just glad Will Smith isn’t alive to see this.”

There’s a lot to pick apart in The Tomorrow War if you feel like spending the time on it. For the most part, it would be a pointless endeavor. The people who are excited by it won’t find the nitpicking to be relevant, and those who aren’t excited by it won’t bother to watch it anyway. A few people out there might be asking the question, “Is it any good?” The best I can say in response to that is . . . it has some redeeming qualities.

It’s better than Battle: Los Angeles was, anyway. Even though that movie and this one have the same basic fundamental problem, which is an over-focus on military style battle sequences, lots of machine gun fire, against aliens who are incredibly difficult to kill. I quickly became desensitized to it. I found the jump into thirty years into the future to be the most interesting thing about it—a burning future Miami skyline is a cool visual—but then (spoiler alert!) the “climactic” sequence is stripped down to dullness, a battle in a present-day snowscape of the Arctic.

Honestly, the most interesting thing about The Tomorrow War is that it’s the first “blockbuster” movie of its genre to be released straight to streaming, in this case Prime Video, with no theatrical release at all. It’s hard to gauge the motivations behind these decisions these days, whether they stick to a traditional theatrical window before any streaming access, or do a dual release on both, or go strictly straight to streaming. This may be the first film of this high a profile and production to go with that last option in a post-COVID world. I find myself wondering: would I have preferred to have seen this in a theater? I can’t decide. I’m glad I didn’t spend extra money on a movie ticket, so, well, I guess that answers that question.

Will more people see it this way? That remains to be seen. The movie is far less likely to make as much money as it would have with a theatrical release in the past, I would think. I can’t stop going back to Battle: Los Angeles, to which this is more similar than any other movie, and that one made all of $85 million domestically, on a movie with a budget of $70 million. Its worldwide gross of nearly $212 million ultimately justified its existence, I guess. And, again: The Tomorrow War is a better movie than that one was, at least. And we live in a far different world of cinema today than we did ten years ago, when I don’t even have to tell you to save yourself the money and just wait for it to appear on streaming: this movie is already there. And if your expectations aren’t that high to begin with, and you just want an entertaining sci-fi action diversion, this movie will do the trick this week.

I mean, if you want to sit through 140 minutes of people shooting at aliens, anyway. This movie would have been much improved with at least thirty minutes trimmed from it, but then, with no theater showing turnover to worry about, streamers clearly aren’t as concerned about run time. I can tell you this much: I enjoyed this movie for what it was, flaws and all, for a good majority of it. But then, with maybe half an hour left to go, I just got bored with what was ultimately more of the same. Even on streamers, there are far better options available—even within the sci-fi genre! Granted, you may have already consumed the better options, so what then? I don’t know, read a book! Or, okay, go ahead and watch this movie, which isn’t terrible, but it sure isn’t great either.

*Credit where credit is due: most of these people survive, at least. Maybe even all of them! I just can’t remember for sure in regards to one of them.*