Movie Review: "The Tomorrow War"
I want my 2 hours and 18 minutes back. Preferably with interest.
This film is propaganda masquerading as entertainment
The alien threat is a metaphor for the “climate crisis”
The only way to stop the alleged threat is with global government
The fourth wall is routinely broken to appease politically correctness
The story feels like it was assembled by a committee
Every war generates its share of propaganda, and the culture war being waged against the West is no exception. In such times, clumsy films peddling ideology as entertainment are not just predictable but inevitable, and "The Tomorrow War" is a prime example of this bait-and-switch tactic.
Those not fully inured to political indoctrination will immediately pick up on the film's big-ticket items: the worldwide threat posed by the "climate crisis" (represented here by toothy, carnivorous aliens), and the need for global government -- both staples of leftist orthodoxy.
These aren't just any two political talking points, of course, they are two of the most important fronts in the Left's war against the common man. Their imaginary "climate crisis" justifies totalitarian control, and global government ensures no one can escape it. In short: "global problems require global solutions" -- a fitting tagline were it not for the fact that it gives away the game.
But shilling for globalists isn't all this film delivers. There are still grievance mongers to appease.
It being a forgone conclusion that some racist or other will consider himself duty-bound to calculate the percentage of black faces appearing on screen, Amazon makes the politically safe call to include a large number of black extras. In different times this wouldn't necessarily be all that notable, but in today's hyper-racialized atmosphere, it serves to break the fourth wall by reminding us of the social decay awaiting us once the credits finish rolling.
Perhaps this casting choice was also penance for the sin of having given top billing to white actors, or perhaps it's a protection payment to the marxist revolutionaries doing business as Black Lives Matter; either way, it stinks. Extras are supposed to aid story-telling, but these were cast to aid the storyteller.
But hey, at least the bad guys are white. In sensible times, when mature adults are still allowed a voice in the culture, the color of an imaginary creature's skin would be purely incidental -- a whimsical flourish by the artist tasked with designing it. But with today's race-obsessed Left, color is never trivial.
Only a couple of years ago it would have been comically preposterous to suggest that a major film studio would choose to create evil white aliens as a means of denigrating white people, but now it has to at least be considered possible if not probable. Frankly, it's surprising they aren't wearing MAGA hats, but perhaps that move is being reserved for the sequel.
The sop to feminists is delivered with similar hammer-striking subtlety in that all of the story's significant military leaders are female. You know, just like in real life where women routinely surpass men in military distinction. As with any politically-correct imposition, this one also comes at the expense of the story; an expense "The Tomorrow War" cannot afford.
Such a marked divergence from reality creates cognitive dissonance in the mind of the viewer, distracting him from a film whose immersive magnetism is already tenuous at best. Just when he should be wondering how Earth's depleted forces can snatch victory from the jaws of defeat, he's jarred into wondering instead how humanity got to the point that its military was being commanded entirely by hot chicks; although this may, in a rare nod to reality, explain its dwindling numbers.
But Feminism isn't content merely to mangle womanhood, it must also attack men. Here the film also delivers the PC goods by inserting an alternate future in which the hero selfishly abandons his wife and daughter, completely breaking with what little character the writers had managed to develop to that point.
But then again, what can you expect from a man? Especially one who is too stupid to draw movie history's most obvious conclusion -- the aliens were (SPOILER ALERT) here earlier than we thought! Fortunately, a woman was on hand to step him through the rudimentary reasoning needed to make this determination.
As art, "The Tomorrow World" is a total failure. The story feels like a poorly assembled puzzle in which pieces were unnaturally forced into place, not because they correctly completed a larger picture but because something -- anything -- was needed to fill the spaces. Major questions are not just unanswered but wholly unaddressed, and the characters are so underdeveloped as to be little more than tropes -- the square-jawed hero, the precocious child, the comic relief, the war-weary soldier, etc.
It's not that a decent story couldn't be told using these elements, but doing so would require at least a movie trilogy or television mini-series. What we got instead was a stitched-together highlight reel devoid of the context necessary to form a human connection with the viewer. Consequently, the already one-dimensional characters are completely disposable, leaving the tragedies they experience utterly devoid of emotion.
While "The Tomorrow War" does contain the requisite number of explosions to qualify as mindless entertainment, its primary achievement -- and, I would argue, its primary purpose -- is political propaganda. Like most modern film and television, though, we're not offered a choice between entertainment and propaganda but only the union of the two. It is indoctrination through entertainment.
But since a serious, engaged mind is a barrier to indoctrination, indoctrinators wisely approach us when these defenses are down; when we've made the decision to turn off our minds and intentionally accept whatever version of reality is spoon-fed to us. "The Tomorrow War" is just propaganda in a war we're fighting in real life.