Amazon Studios brings us a sci-fi action thriller about the end of the world that has alien bugs, machine guns and time travel. Sounds good? You are thinking Starship Troopers and you are not wrong, albeit The Tomorrow War is an empty husk of a bug compared to Paul Verhoeven’s sci-fi classic. In fact, you are better off (re-)watching Starship Troopers than this, then again, if you manage to switch off your brain for 2h 20mins you may be able to sit through this stitched together, plot hole infested bug killing spree without the urge to go Pickle-Rick on it.
Seriously, don’t pay too much attention, don’t ask any questions, forget about the science or plausibility and try and suspend your disbelief and enjoy the action, fast forward when there’s no action (basically the whole second “act”). Maybe just watch it with friends and laugh about all the film’s shortcomings and just talk over the dialogue and make your own version of it!
I was expecting more funny quips from Chris Pratt’s character and J.K Simmons is wasted and where the heck does the third dude (Charlie) suddenly come from in the end when they fall on the ice, after … you know…? Oh sorry, no questions. Really… don’t!
There are zero interesting characters in this movie and that includes the “White Spikes”, which I find could be a great band name but doesn’t really do anything for me in terms of horrific man-eating monsters. If anything, it demystifies the bugs and gives them a rather unoriginal name, the origin of which is explained to the viewer by showing a close-up of a white tipped spike… you see, the bugs shoot spikes … and they have white tips … so we call them … uhhhh … what shall we call them? Never mind, we will call them Clickers, because they communicate with each other by making clicking noises, a noise so horrific, that it traumatized at least one soldier, as we find out.
Apart from naming silliness, the bugs look silly as well, or not, according to the recruiting soldier’s answer when asked why there are no videos to study the enemy and better prepare… because if you knew how horrific they look, no one would want to come and fight! Yeah, shocking! Anyway, again, as I said… do not ask any questions! It’s a mindless action movie that does its action scenes well and Chris Pratt (Dan Forester) is certainly watchable and so is Yvonne Strahovski (Colonel Muri Forester), although I kept thinking “Chuck” all the time!
Will they succeed, win the war and save the human race from extinction? Again, with the questions! Stop it! We all know the answer anyway. Now, go watch Starship Troopers and revel in its satirical gory glory.
