For me the best recent military vs monster movie is Spectral.
That movie blows.
I watched it last evening (The Tomorrow War). Very average. Totally popcorn switch your brain off and enjoy the pretty lights kind of movie.
Everything from plot, to dialogue and acting was below average. I think this movie is aimed at the 13 year old crowd, really. I got the sense that they tried their best to emulate some of the things that made movies like Independence Day or even The Rock fun to watch, but the quality is nowhere near there.
Independence Day blows and is much dumber than this movie.
Was entertaining enough dumb fun but decidedly average overall. Creature designs were "ok", firing spikes was a nice touch although they never really crossed the barrier into iconic.
Story was pretty dumb overall but eh, I've seen worse. I felt like they had a bunch of ideas but never fully developed any of them.
His Dad left him when he was a kid so they have a strained relationship but they only spend 5 minutes on that plot-point/character until the ending when he comes to the Dad for help and has a different perspective on things after finding out he for no apparent or explained reason leaves his family in the original timeline. The Dad character or this relationship is never really explored and is wrapped up with a neat bow at the end: "See! It all ties in with his relation AS a father and his relationship to his OWN father! Genius! Now they are besties!"
His quad mates like the black guy who has gone back multiple times to the future were never really developed other than to have some kind of background characters and a crew to bring to the final fight, he could have been a cool character out for revenge or something but they kind of dropped the ball.
They tried to have their cake and eat it with the aliens attacking in the future but also being trapped in the ice for a thousand years, was a reasonable twist but felt they didn't really spend any time on it again, just pew pew aliens!
It was also stupid when the present day military guys were all: "We can't spend any resources on your silly idea that could save humanity and the future, now allow us to continue sending millions of untrained civilians into the future to fight an alien race we know nothing about to save our future planet's population."
Also why was the tour of duty in the future only 7 days? Surely if humanity is on the brink of extinction then they would need everyone they could get and with the more experience the better? Also why did they send everyone with no training or intel on the enemy? What a dumb way to waste resources and people. Dumbfuck military ideas lol
They also tried to have their cake and eat it too with the whole scientist/ex-army angle, eh not the worst idea as it did explain how he could lead/survive things in battle but it felt a little unrealistic. They also don't do much with his scientist angle at all, I thought that would end up saving the day in the end but no it was his daughter who developed the toxin or whatever. I guess you could say it was the love of/interest in science he embedded in her as a child that saved the day? But eh felt like a wasted opportunity for me.
Acting was serviceable all round, nothing amazing but nothing terrible. All in all relatively solid but nobody is winning awards for this. They decided to go with the everyman 40+ people for some ham fisted "oh it would create a paradox and you are already dead in the future or something". If there are only 500,000 people left alive in the future anyway wouldn't almost everyone already be dead then? Was just a dumb idea but eh I've seen worse.
It seems like I'm being overly harsh here but I did enjoy the film and it had some interesting ideas and some good moments. I just felt like it kind of had too many ideas or rewrites that could have been a little better implemented. Too many ingredients that kind of made a bland but edible meal.
Worth a watch but don't expect greatness. Edge of Tomorrow this is not.
His leaving the family in the original timeline takes years, even years between the separation and divorce, and you can actually see hints of it, when he doesn't get that job he wanted there's the beginning of a malaise setting in for him. I didn't think the idea was his father turned a corner in that final third so much as HE did because he was able to let his father back into his and his daughter's life because he realized the importance of giving someone a second chance especially when he made the same mistakes.
I mean, how developed are the marines in Aliens? I never get these complaints, they're either likable or not but developed is rarely the right word in stuff like this.
What's wrong with the trapped in ice idea, tho? Don;'t get the complaint.
They actually weren't sending people into the future any more, the time thing was destroyed and anarchy was engulfing the world over our impending doom.
It had to do with the white spike hibernation cycle, also considering barely anyone returns from even 7 days of deployment I'm not sure they could expect more, still there's a huge pool of people to pull from.
They do teach them where to aim to kill the enemies but the idea that even with a draft if you knew what it was like you'd run and not show up was interesting, like some people would rather face the imprisonment than fight something like that, tho the real reason was to make the reveal to the audience better.
But he taught his daughter and he does help her. I don't see why it's a wasted opportunity, he gets to see his fatherhood helped her become someone important, pretty neat.
I mean does any sci-fi win awards for acting these days? Even if the acting is amazing?
Good point about the only 500,000 people alive thing, however you wouldn't have the best records of who's alive and dead in that level of chaos and with plenty of people in the past to send sending people you KNOW are dead is probably smarter.
No, it's not as good as Edge of Tomorrow but it has good effects, well choreographed action and the action has a real feel of stakes and suspense to it that movies rarely have these days. Most action scenes these days are two superheroes punching, I'll take my time travel alien invasion crap thank you very much lol. Could it have been done better? Absolutely, I think some of the comic relief is cringe, I think 50% of all people being black isn't reality lol (oh and they're all either geniuses or the best at something) but some of the rough edges of the film I think are because it was originally a Universal planned theatrical release and the pandemic caused them to sell it to Amazon who probably did the bare minimum to get it ready to play for them, it probably felt like a huge get for their service to get an actual summer blockbuster and people would accept the flaws because they didn't need to hit the theaters for it. For me I totally accept them because I crave certain elements it delivers and other movies don't want to give me it.