The Tomorrow War
Amazon Studios | Release Date (Streaming): July 2, 2021 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
45
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 35 Critic Reviews
Positive:
6
Mixed:
21
Negative:
8
Watch Now
Stream On
Buy on

Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
83
The PlaylistNick AllenJul 1, 2021
Blockbuster movies are often as loud and action-based as The Tomorrow War, but they’re rarely as diverse in tone or so delightfully wild when it comes to in-your-face entertainment. Read full review
75
UproxxVince ManciniJul 1, 2021
Never before has a streaming release so capably evoked “Summer blockbuster.” Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleJul 1, 2021
It would probably be a mistake to emphasize the relationship aspect of The Tomorrow War too much. At its core, this is just a really good monster movie. All the same, there’s a touch of beauty to it. Read full review
70
New York Magazine (Vulture)Bilge EbiriJul 2, 2021
So, it’s Edge of Tomorrow meets Interstellar meets Aliens meets Tenet meets Independence Day, with their brains removed. But it’s still tremendous fun, because this thing moves. Let’s face it: If it slowed down, the audience might start asking too many questions. The Tomorrow War is just as stupid as it needs to be. Read full review
65
SlashfilmHoai-Tran BuiJul 1, 2021
The sentimentality threatens to veer into melodrama at points, which Pratt struggles to handle. But The Tomorrow War has got a trashy popcorn vibe to it that it wholeheartedly embraces, and a cornball machismo that you can’t help but get taken in by, even if just for a second. Read full review
63
The Associated PressJake CoyleJul 1, 2021
McKay, director of The Lego Movie, is most at home in humor, and The Tomorrow War can be funny. It’s less adept at some of the operatic notes it tries to strike, but, well, aliens can be tricky. Read full review
60
Screen RantChris AgarJul 10, 2021
The Tomorrow War is a fun entry into the sci-fi/time travel genre, though the pieces never add up to something all that memorable. Read full review
60
We Got This CoveredScott CampbellJul 6, 2021
The Tomorrow War isn't as good as it could have been, but it's an entertaining enough sci-fi action blockbuster. Read full review
60
The Observer (UK)Wendy IdeJul 5, 2021
Pratt, and in particular Betty Gilpin as his wife, give likable, grounded performances. But the screenplay is a bloated, unwieldy thing that is at least 30 minutes longer than it should be. Read full review
60
Total FilmJames MottramJul 2, 2021
There’s a lack of genuine emotional heft, not helped by some clunky dialogue (lines like "we are literally living on borrowed time"). But what the film really misses, amid several ear-splitting, CG-heavy alien-attack set-pieces, is humour. Read full review
60
The Hollywood ReporterJohn DeForeJul 1, 2021
Though the movie is rife with too-convenient coincidences and relies on another iffy plot point or two to make its emotional arc work, the monster-killin’ functions well enough that few will complain. Read full review
60
TV Guide MagazineJordan HoffmanJul 1, 2021
The first hour of The Tomorrow War is really quite dumb fun. The second half pumps the brakes on the wacky sci-fi and just goes in for gross-out action. Read full review
54
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Barry HertzJul 1, 2021
It is a fool’s errand to imagine what someone like Verhoeven would have done with The Tomorrow War’s material – this is a movie made for the express purposes of delivering some lazy woo-hoo summer fun, not any kind of sneaky subversiveness. Read full review
50
Original-CinJim SlotekJul 1, 2021
With echoes of Starship Troopers (minus the pointed satire), The Tomorrow War, starring Chris Pratt, is the second noisy “temporal war” movie of the pandemic era, after Christopher Nolan’s Tenet. To differentiate between the two, this is the one Nolan would have written if he’d suffered a head injury. Read full review
50
New York PostJohnny OleksinskiJul 1, 2021
The Tomorrow War, in trying to become the new Independence Day (this release date is not arbitrary), throws Alien, The Terminator and A Quiet Place in a blender. And, like that gross kale smoothie you made once, the result is gray goop. Read full review
50
VarietyOwen GleibermanJul 1, 2021
The Tomorrow War is a big, dumb, sometimes tedious, sometimes fun civilization-vs.-aliens showdown. Read full review
50
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliJul 1, 2021
Although the film’s sci-fi elements are flimsy at best, it boasts some strong action sequences. The special effects sometimes feel a little too video-game-y but, for the most part, they get the job done. Read full review
50
Boston GlobeMark FeeneyJul 1, 2021
The best thing in the movie is Pratt. Firmly established in not one but two franchises — Guardians of the Galaxy and the Jurassic Park reboot — he’s come a long way from Parks and Recreation. He alternates here between charming wise guy and sensitive family man: Peter Quill domesticated. Read full review
50
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzJul 1, 2021
The film has lots of effects and action and loads of Chris Pratt. What it needs more of is heart. Read full review
50
IndieWireDavid EhrlichJul 1, 2021
It’s enough to make you long for the days when blockbusters of this scale weren’t afraid to make strong choices, especially the ones about how we’re all going to die if we don’t. Read full review
50
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperJul 1, 2021
The Tomorrow War is an earnest effort to bring something new to the time-travel action genre, but this movie is a 2021 vehicle made of parts from the 2010s and the 1990s and 1980s. Read full review
42
The A.V. ClubJesse HassengerJul 1, 2021
The movie accumulates much from its betters before it starts to rot from the inside. Eventually, it becomes a distended corpse of a big-ticket blockbuster, washed up on streaming. Read full review
40
CNNBrian LowryJul 2, 2021
Watching Chris Pratt fight to save the future has a certain appeal, but in the here and now, he can't even save the movie. Read full review
40
Los Angeles TimesRobert DanielsJul 1, 2021
The Tomorrow War tries its hand at throwback ‘90s action glory, back when cinematic adventures could be everything for everybody. Instead, this post-apocalyptic combat flick lacks the intensity to reach the 1.21 gigawatts worth of power needed to emblazon our screens in escapist flair. Read full review
40
TheWrapSimon AbramsJul 1, 2021
While The Tomorrow War isn’t exactly good, it is often promising enough to convince you that at some point, it will reward your time and patience. Read full review
40
EmpireJohn NugentJul 1, 2021
Despite its wild premise — Chris Pratt goes to the future to fight aliens! — and considerable talent, The Tomorrow War is mostly just bloated blockbuster business as usual. Read full review
40
The GuardianPeter BradshawJul 1, 2021
It all feels like a heavy meal, and the action scenes and the creature effects are very derivative. Read full review
38
Movie NationRoger MooreJul 2, 2021
I might’ve cut The Tomorrow War a little more slack had screenwriter Zach Dean not conjured up the crappiest, sappiest most over-extended finale in living sci-fi movie memory. Read full review
38
RogerEbert.comChristy LemireJul 2, 2021
The supposedly original script from writer Zach Dean offers very little that’s innovative or inspired. Read full review
38
Slant MagazineWes GreeneJul 1, 2021
The Tomorrow War is little more than a clunky, Nolan-esque exercise in instruction-manual cinema. Read full review
35
ABC NewsPeter TraversJul 2, 2021
There's nothing ‘tomorrow’ about a recycled sci-fi jumble that places all its bets on yesterday. Read full review
32
Paste MagazineTara Bennett Jul 1, 2021
Unfortunately, The Tomorrow War isn’t allowed to be the dumb, “just go with it” summer spectacle it should have been, a la Independence Day. Instead, McKay and Dean force it to be a self-aware and “smart” time travel drama, with feelings big enough to crack generational war trauma issues, among lots of things that go “boom!” and “pew, pew, pew.” Read full review
30
Film ThreatHunter LanierJul 12, 2021
None of the set pieces are inventive, and the dialogue is either overly serious or hacky ha-has. In addition to the bland everyman at the center of the story, all the supporting characters are soulless mouthpieces. Read full review
30
IGNKristy PuchkoJul 1, 2021
It’s astonishing that the helmer of The LEGO Batman Movie followed that vibrant, funny, and wildly entertaining offering with an action movie that is such an inane eyesore. And yet that turn still makes more sense than the plot of The Tomorrow War. Read full review
30
The New York TimesJeannette CatsoulisJul 1, 2021
The Tomorrow War is betting its flash will blind us to its vacuity. Read full review
More From This Movie

45 Critic Reviews

6.4 User Reviews

Details & Credits|Trailers

Current Movie Releases
By MetascoreBy User Score
1 81 Everything Everywhere All at Once
2 78 Top Gun: Maverick
3 75 The Bob's Burgers Movie
4 72 Jujutsu Kaisen 0: The Movie
5 72 7 Days
SEE ALL
Essential Links
New on Amazon Prime Video
New on Netflix
Coming Soon to DVD/Blu-ray
SEE ALL