The Tomorrow War review – time stretches in Chris Pratt’s alien-invasion sci-fi

We’ve come an awfully long way since Chris Pratt was the goofy comic turn Andy Dwyer in TV’s Parks and Recreation, pretending to be top-secret FBI agent Burt Macklin. These days he’s got the chops to be a tough, chiselled action lead who removes his shirt to reveal some serious work with the personal trainer, and this is how he’s presented in this great big overstuffed and overlong sci-fi action thriller from former animation director Chris McKay. In Guardians of the Galaxy and Jurassic World, Pratt had at least some residue of his former comedy existence, and to be fair there are one or two funny lines here (coming largely from JK Simmons, playing Pratt’s grumpy yet adorable dad), but this is a very earnest and generic lead performance.

Pratt plays Dan Forester, an idealistic soldier-turned-high school teacher with a wife and young daughter; he lives in an America that is suddenly terrified by visitors from the future who reveal that in 30 years’ time Earth will be attacked by weird, white, lizard-like creatures (not a million miles away from those in the sci-fi horror A Quiet Place). Humanity is so low on soldiers that they have to time-travel into the past to recruit more personnel and bring them into the future to fight this “tomorrow war” against the alien creatures. And Dan is duly drafted into the head-spinningly weird conflict, coming into contact with fellow warriors like cheerfully nerdy Charlie (Sam Richardson), tough and cynical Dorian (Edwin Hodge) and also Norah (Mary Lynn Rajskub). But most importantly there is the charismatic female commanding officer, played by Yvonne Strahovski (from The Handmaid’s Tale). The encounter messes with Dan’s mind: you’ve heard of back to the future, but this is forward to the past, or maybe sideways to the next generation.

Inevitably, we are confronted with the possibility of having to travel right back into the past to fight the war on the home turf of the present day in some kind of pre-emptive sense – shades of The Terminator – and as with all “time travel” movies we have to ignore the logical impossibilities that this involves. The film seems to go on and on like something by Wagner; but it finally ends, thanks to some vital expertise provided by one of Dan’s high school students, with a plot turn which perhaps owes something to the final act of the classic comedy Galaxy Quest. It all feels like a heavy meal, and the action scenes and the creature effects are very derivative.

• The Tomorrow War is on Amazon Prime Video from 2 July.