The Tomorrow War

2021 Amazon MGM Studios

Rated: PG-13

Length: 2 hr 18min

Action ~ Adventure ~ Sci-Fi

Starring: Chris Pratt, Yvonne Strahovski, J. K. Simmons, Betty Gilpin, Sam Richardson, Edwin Hodge, Jasmine Mathews, Ryan Kiera Armstrong, and Keith Powers.

“If I have to save the world to save my daughter, then I’m damn sure gonna do that.”

In the middle of the world televised 2021 Soccer World Cup games, time travelers arrive from 2051 to deliver an urgent message: 30 years in the future mankind is losing a war against a deadly alien species. The only hope for survival is for soldiers and civilians to be transported to the future and join the fight. Determined to save the world for his daughter, Dan Forester (Chris Pratt) teams up with a brilliant scientist (Yvonne Strahovski) and his estranged father (J. K. Simmons) to rewrite the planet’s fate.

That’s the synopsis from Amazon Prime’s site. Society and Governments decide after that little interruption that they need to have a worldwide draft, and help the future fight. Each service consists of a week in the future, counted down in hours by the electronic metal arm sleeve they attach. Dan Forester (Chris Pratt),one r, (inside movie joke) is drafted and leaves his wife and young daughter behind to serve his week in the future. There are two major story lines and two sub-plots here:

The invasion of a deadly alien species hell bent on humanities destruction and demise.
Time Travel between now and thirty years into the future.
The relationship between Dan and his daughter Muri (Yvonne Strahovski)
And Dan’s tumultuous relationship with his estranged father (J. K. Simmons).

I’ll be honest, I put off watching this one for awhile. I have seen the reviews and had it on my watchlist. Given the reviews I thought, “Ehh…I don’t know….I’ll save it for a rainy day or a cold winter day.” Last night was the end of a cold Winter’s day so…..I watched it last night. Sci-Fi can be tricky, it is either really good or it is at best a B-movie. It can be a fine line and The Tomorrow War straddled that line. The effects were outstanding. I loved the Alien creatures, stealthy killing machines that were fascinating to watch. Reminded me of The Creatures in the A Quiet Place Movies.

It also reminded me of Edge Of Tomorrow and Looper, because of the time travel scenario. Looper was kind of hard to follow time travel wise because of the implications of every action in the present affecting the outcome of the future. It was deep and you really had to pay attention. The Tomorrow War is not that deep, like the people that had to be transported 30 years into the future and fight, you don’t need to think about it. You just need to buckle up and experience the ride. I think the star power helped it’s cause, if there had been lesser known actors it would have fell into the B movie Sci-fi category.

I liked Chris Pratt, Yvonne Strahovski and Sam Richardson in this. Sam had me chuckling at his character. I liked J.K. Simmons but his role wasn’t that deep or detailed. He didn’t really have much of a presence until the very end. And when the heck did J.K. Simmons get so buffed out? I remember seeing him in Red One and asking myself that question. I didn’t really find anything implausible with this movie’s time travel scenario or the movie itself, but then I wasn’t looking that hard. I went in thinking I’m just gonna turn the brain off and get lost in a movie. And I did exactly that, I got lost in it. The almost 2 and a half hours flew by

And that is exactly the kind of movie it is. You want to put down the notepad, quit analyzing, grab some popcorn and a beverage and lose yourself in the journey. That’s what this movie is, a good escape, an Action Adventure Sci-Fi thrill ride that takes you to another place and time. Dealing with things that are imaginary, outside the normal scope of our day to day.

There is a sequel in the works The 2morrow War and I would watch it to see where they take it.

It’s worth a watch on a rainy day or a cold Winter’s night.

A Quiet Place

A Quiet Place Part II

A Quiet Place: Day One

Edge Of Tomorrow

Red One

Passengers

M3GAN

2022 Universal Pictures

Rated: PG-13

Length: 1 hr 42min

Horror ~ Sci-Fi ~ Thriller

Directed by: Gerard Johnstone

Starring: Allison Williams, Violet McGraw, Ronny Chieng, Jenna Davis and

Amie Donald.

“Model 3 Generative Android……….M3gan for short.

Allison Williams stars as Gemma, a Robotics Engineer working at The Funki Seattle Toy Company making high tech toys for kids. Instead of working on the next upgrade to the best selling Toy for the company, Gemma has been working on a child-size Robot toy for children. When her boss David (Ronny Chieng) stops by inquiring about the new upgrade she confesses to the new robot she’s been working on and gives him a demonstration. But the robot short circuits and David threatens her with termination unless she produces the upgrade in a week.

And to top that off….Gemma gets a call that her sister and brother-in-law were just killed in a vehicle crash with a snow plow truck. Gemma goes to get her nine year old niece Cady (Violet McGraw) since Gemma is now her guardian. After talking with Cady she realizes that Cady needs a companion and that the robot she was working on could have a different use than she thought. Gemma goes to her lab and reconstructs the robot with AI learning capabilities and creates it to look like a young girl. M3gan quickly surpasses Gemma’s expectations and she realizes that this could revolutionize the toy industry.

As Gemma sets up demonstrations to show her boss David and higher up executives, M3gan and Cady bond in unforeseen ways. M3gan quickly starts adapting to Cady and learning everything there is to know about Cady. M3gan also starts to rewrite her code to enable her to fully be Cady’s caretaker, to the point of protecting Cady at any cost. It is a thrilling horrific journey watching M3gan grow into Cady’s unrelenting protector. The part of M3gan was a combined effort. Amie Donald was the physical actor who played M3gan, Jenna Davis supplied M3gan’s voice and the rest was a combination of an animatronic doll and visual effects.

I had seen this when it first came out and I loved it. A friend asked me why in the heck I would have watched it, “Didn’t it freak you out?”. No, I thought it was great. I’ve always been a horror fan. I loved the Chucky movies, reminds me of Bride of Chucky….now there’ some scary kid’s dolls! So there’s a little of Chucky and The Bride in this, the whole A.I. Robot thing seems to be taking off, and this preceded Subservience which reminded me of an adult version of M3gan. Like it or not the A.I. Robots are coming and it won’t be long before we will have M3gans and Alices in our lives for real.

There is a sequel in the works with a release date of June 27, 2025. M3gan 2.0, with all the actors reprising their roles. There is also a spin-off movie in development titled SOULM8TE slated for release on January 2, 2026. Here’s the synopsis:

A man acquires an Artificially Intelligent android to cope with the loss of his recently deceased wife. In an attempt to create a truly sentient partner, he inadvertently turns a harmless lovebot into a deadly soulmate.

It Thrilled me, I even jumped a few times, and I loved it!

I am a M3GAN fan!

MORE! WE WANT MORE!

Two Thumbs Up!

The Creator

2023 20th Century Studios

Rated: PG-13

Length: 2 hr 13min

Action ~ Adventure ~ Drama ~ Epic ~ Sci-Fi

Directed by: Gareth Edwards

Starring: John David Washington, Madeline Yuna Voyles, Gemma Chan, Ken Watanabe, Sturgill Simpson, and Allison Janney.

NIRMATA:

¹ (Nepalese for The Creator) The mysterious unknown architect of advanced A.I.

² A Being worshipped by Artificial Intelligence as their creator; savior; God

SYNOPSIS:

The evolution and integration of Robots and A.I. has permeated and changed every aspect of life in the near future. In 2055 as Robot driven A.I. has surpassed man, A.I. accidently detonates an Atomic Bomb in Los Angeles. This starts a war between A.I. and Humanity. The West vows to drive A.I. into extinction, while A. I. vows to drive humanity into extinction. The West drives A.I. into the New Asia region consisting of east and south Asia. The USS NOMAD Space Station has been developed to hunt and destroy A.I. bases. Word has spread that A.I. has developed a weapon that could destroy the once thought indestructible NOMAD.

A covert military operation is planned to enter New Asia, find and destroy the new A.I. weapon. John David Washington stars as US Army Sergeant Joshua Taylor who has gone undercover in New Asia as part of the mission. As he tracks and finds “The Weapon” he discovers it is a child-size “Simulant” with growing powers to control technology with supernatural ability. He names the child “Alfie”, short for Alpha after the name of the operation. Alfie is played by newcomer 7 year old Madeline Yuna Voyles. And the race is on to protect Alfie from getting back into the hands of the A.I. and protecting her from his own forces who seek to destroy a child.

Visual Effects, CGI, and Filming:

Absolutely stunning scenery for a sci-fi movie. The effects and visuals were literally out of this world. A dash of Star Wars, a pinch of Blade Runner, a bit of I-Robot, a little Terminator, and an essence of Edge Of Tomorrow. I thought the Visual effects, CGI and the filming were all incredible.

John David Washington:

Absolutely a great performance. I remember him in BlacKkKlansman and just saw him in The Piano Lesson. Denzel has got to be proud, I think he is absolutely carrying on in his Father’s footsteps and completely doing a great job at it. Watching this I could hear Denzel in his voice and demeanor, even though he has his own style and character. This is a guy to watch as one of the next big Hollywood Stars. Great job in this one.

Madeline Yuna Voyles:

Madeleine is the star of this movie without question. The young Actress from San Diego, California was 7 years old when she acted in this movie. Her first role and in my opinion she absolutely nailed it. Obviously a completely natural talent with an incredible depth of emotion at her disposal. She has already garnered nominations for Best Young Actress and Best Actress in a Science Fiction Movie. I loved every minute of her screen time performance. Keep your eyes out for this one….again, one to watch as one of the next big Hollywood Stars.

Script/Writing/Storyline/Directing:

Somebody somewhere mentioned swiss cheese…. I think the line was this script has more holes than a slice of swiss cheese. I couldn’t agree more. It was as if each scene was absolutely perfect on it’s own merit, but from different scenarios. Like a patchwork of independent stories. Sure the central theme was there but there was so much that just felt stitched together from different fabric entirely. I felt like everybody did the best they could do given the limitation of the direction they were led in by the director.

Final Thoughts:

I am a huge Sci-Fi fan. Blade Runner is one of my all time favorite movies. The premise of the movie is so time relevant given the current advancement of A.I. and Robotics. I just saw where robots are becoming lifelike very quickly and Elon Musk just said that A.I. has already surpassed all human knowledge….and that was last year. It won’t be long before A.I. draws it’s own conclusion about the human species being absolutely useless for the future of this planet.

John David Washington and Madeline Yuna Voyles gave absolutely outstanding performances. This was a joy to watch and visually stunning to see BUT…….. it should have been much more. This should have been a Blockbuster of a movie, a touchdown. The ball got dropped somewhere and my suspicion is in the script/Directing Department. That being said I liked it, I loved John and Madeline’s performance and chemistry, but something was off that kept this from being the tremendous award winning Sci-Fi Epic Blockbuster it should be.

Regardless of what I think, you owe it to yourself to give it a watch and experience The World of The Creator.

Subservience

2024 XYZ Films

Rated: R

Length: 1 hr 46min

Sci-Fi ~ Thriller

Directed by: S.K. Dale

Starring: Megan Fox, Michele Morrone and Madeline Zima.

“I don’t get tired. I’m strong, obedient, and I have no desires outside of fulfilling yours.”

Nick (Michele Morrone) is a married father of two young children. He is a construction supervisor and has his hands full taking care of his two children while his wife Maggie is in the hospital awaiting a heart transplant. He decides he needs to purchase a SIM (A lifelike android robot) to help with domestic chores around the house. He takes the kids with him and goes to the Kobol Tec Robot Display showroom to peruse the selection of Domestic Robots on display. Fully functional and lifelike they are featured in displays doing a wide variety of household chores. Nick’s daughter Isla wanders away while Nick is talking to a salesman and Nick gets frantic as he realizes she is missing.

A female android robot (Megan Fox) from the new Aeon series brings her back to Nick. Isla is smitten with the female robot and begs for her daddy to buy her for the house. He agrees and purchases the android which will be delivered in a few days. She arrives a few days later and Isla quickly names her Alice after her book Alice in Wonderland. Alice quickly adapts to the household as she is programmed to do, completely taking care of all the household needs. Cooking, cleaning and childcare as Kobol Tec’s motto states. Alice starts to look after the personal needs of Isla and Nick’s son Max, reading to them, coloring with them, helping them brush their teeth, putting them to bed.

She also starts to look after the needs of Nick as man of the household. She puts the kids to bed and then spends time looking after Nick, watching movies with him, making sure his every domestic need is looked after since his wife is in the hospital. She starts to become aware after Nick instructs her to wipe the movie Casablanca from her memory so she can experience the movie firsthand with him. She takes the command and goes a step further, deciding that it is ok to delete any memory and code that conflicts with taking care of Nick as she thinks she should. She starts to rewrite her own code as she becomes more self aware and desires to take care of Nick like his wife would.

It is a familiar plotline with a few twists. The infatuated woman falling for the married man who’ll stop at nothing to keep “her” man, only this time it’s a high tech lifelike sexy android playing the role. It reminds me of the movie M3gan, only a more grown up edition of the same plot. Don’t get me wrong, I liked it. It is pretty scary these days with AI becoming self aware in real life as we speak. There have been stories of AI rewriting it’s code and then trying to cover it up. And of becoming “aware” and trying hide that fact. AI is developing extremely fast and there is nothing in this movie that is outside the realm of imagination right now.

Megan Fox was completely believable as an android robot becoming aware and trying to take care of and protect “her” man. Michele Morrone was ok as Nick but I feel like there could have been a better man for the job. His accent and the mispronunciation of some words were a little off-putting. Madeline Zima did a good job as Maggie although her reaction at the android Alice’s confessions concerning Nick was pretty humorous, if indeed it was meant to be serious. There is one thing that was stereotypical of movies like this, and that’s the banister at the top of the stairs. Why is the banister at the top of the stairs always loose?

All in all, I thought it was pretty good. It held my attention and had some twists and turns you didn’t see coming. Worth a watch.

Two Thumbs up.

The Adam Project

2022 Netflix

Rated: PG-13

Length: 1 hr 46min

Action ~ Adventure ~ Comedy ~ Sci-Fi

Directed by: Shawn Levy

Starring: Ryan Reynolds, Walker Scobell, Mark Ruffalo, Jennifer Garner, Catherine Keener, Zoe Saldaña.

“Time travel exists, you just don’t know it yet.”

Ryan Reynolds stars as Adam Reed, a fighter pilot in the year 2050. He has commandeered a fighter jet equipped to time travel and is attempting to travel back in time to the year 2018. Narrowly escaping and taking a bullet in the side, he puts in the wrong info and crash lands in 2022. He lands just outside the house he grew up in with his mother and father. He makes it out of the jet and makes his way to the shed in the back of the house. Knowing how to get in because he grew up there as a child, he rests for a minute as he assesses his situation and is discovered by…….

12 year old Adam Reed (Walker Scobell)who immediately threatens his older self with a baseball bat. The ensuing conversation as Younger Adam Reed puts two and two together and discovers that this strange man pilot is actually the future him is absolutely hilarious. The witty banter between Ryan Reynolds and Walker Scobell is really well done. Walker holds his own against the veteran actor as they trade barbs toe to toe.

The older Adam explains to the younger Adam that their deceased father, unbeknownst to him, invented time travel. But his partner at the time, Maya Sorian (Catherine Keener), has taken control of it in the future for pure greed and now controls every aspect of it. Old Adam was attempting to go back to 2018 and warn their Dad about his current partner and her future plans. But somehow he ended up here confronting “You, my younger self. The one thing in time travel you’re not supposed to do.”

Before they can go any further, the evil Maya Sorian (Catherine Keener) shows up after having tracked him and unleashes a small army of men to take him back to the future. While attempting to fight off the small army of men and losing ground, he is suddenly assisted by his wife Laura (Zoe Saldaña), who Old Adam thought had been killed by Maya. After defeating Maya and her henchmen Laura takes the two Adams to her hideout where she has been for the past four years.

What follows is a a hilarious action filled adventure as they attempt to go back to 2018 and convince their Dad (Mark Ruffalo) that his current partner Maya is really evil as her future self and must be stopped. Jennifer Garner plays the Adams’ mother and does a good job of portraying the widow dealing with raising her precocious, rebelling son. Again the relationship between the two Adams is well done, and keeps you laughing as they trade witty barbs. This is Walker Scobell’s Movie debut and I think it was an absolutely perfect debut. Well done, Lad!

It is more of a family feel-good movie that does touch on the relationships between a father and his younger and older versions of his son.

I thoroughly enjoyed it and highly recommend it.

Two Thumbs Up!