No, Chris McKay’s The Tomorrow Way is not a sequel to Doug Liman’s Edge of Tomorrow. However, both films do agree on one thing: tomorrow=bad. In the future, aliens will kill everyone and some sort of time travel trope must be employed in order to stop them. Bring in the heavy weaponry and stoic poses because it’s time for some vaguely similar action heroes.
In The Tomorrow War, Chris Pratt plays ex-Green Beret and current biology teacher, Dan Forester, who goes to war because he hates his dad. In Edge of Tomorrow—which was re-branded “Live Die Repeat” because putting the synopsis in the title is helpful—Tom Cruise plays Major William Cage, an officer who has never seen combat. Both men are ill-prepared for an alien invasion; thankfully, they have their badass leading ladies in Yvonne Strahovski and Emily Blunt to tell them exactly what to do about tomorrow…which is also sometimes today. In this edition of Mandatory Movies Battles, we pit The Tomorrow War against Edge of Tomorrow (or Live Die Repeat, in case you’re confused) and see which had/has the brighter future.
Cover Photo: Amazon Prime/Warner Bros.
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The Tomorrow War is trivial entertainment. That’s why it’s “the most-streamed movie” right now. Experiment with the concepts, throw in those aliens that were transporting the White Spikes, get a better script, and hopefully, the sequel is more interesting. Or just watch the first one drunk, it’s more fun that way. Edge of Tomorrow does proud by a proven formula, is well-acted, and has inventive action sequences. Unfortunately, Edge of Tomorrow 2—which has been development for quite some time—might not happen due scheduling conflicts and funding issues.
Overall Winner: Edge of Tomorrow
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Tomorrow War Edge of Tomorrow
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Cast (Really Just The Two Leads)
Following in the footsteps of his father-in-law, Pratt is a full-blown action hero and the drawn-out shirtless scenes are here to prove it. Pratt certainly makes the most of his less-than well-rounded character and The Tomorrow War’s inconsistent script. The movie feels like it was written around its overtly emotional moments – don’t get us wrong, Strahovski is good at crying – but does any of this make sense? The “family” theme has become a Dominic Toretto meme. The cast of The Tomorrow War, while talented, is misused.
Cruise commits in Edge of Tomorrow; perfecting his Normandy beach (but with aliens) situation today after today. It’s kind of awesome seeing him lose so much—something neither Mission: Impossible nor Scientology allows him to do. Blunt is also great in this movie; pretending to meet someone for the first time over and over again. As Cruise not so secretly gets to know his crush, so does the audience, creating this strange dynamic that makes everyone involved embrace their stalker side. But they’re awesome together and have great chemistry. On top of that, Bill Paxton and J Squad add a suitable rag-tag element and Brendan Gleeson shows up to do suitable General stuff. In 2014, Edge of Tomorrow proved Cruise wasn't an ironic action hero, yet. Pratt, while possessing charm and quirks all his own, is on his own in The Tomorrow War.
Winner: Edge of Tomorrow
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Aliens
No one enjoys getting stung by a bee (except for that one chick on My Strange Addiction); perhaps this is why a lot of monster movies embrace the idea of a hive mind. If you take out the Queen/Mother/Omega (or something along those lines), the rest of the aliens will fall. Both The Tomorrow War and Edge of Tomorrow proceed accordingly. In the latter, there are regular Mimics, Alphas, and the Omega—the one you need to kill to collect your prize. In The Tomorrow War, they need to capture the White Spikes’ Queen to derive a toxin that will kill the rest, which is all fine and dandy.
The Tomorrow War’s White Claws...er White Spikes look like the monsters out of A Quiet Place with tentacles that shoot...spikes. Their introduction is fantastic. Survival horror in the vein Aliens. Unfortunately, this devolves into a sea of CGI monsters which just makes them less interesting.
While the White Spikes are depicted as feral planet destroyers, Edge of Tomorrow’s Mimics are all part of one sentient organism. It know what it's doing, arriving in Germany and conquers most of Europe like Hitler on steroids. It even plant visions to lure Cage into a trap, refusing to let him kill himself in an attempt to get back the reset power. As far as the design, well, you be the judge of that.
Winner: Edge of Tomorrow
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Use of Time Travel/Concept
In The Tomorrow War, a platoon of soldiers from the future interrupt a soccer game and say they’re losing a war and need to draft people from the past. It’s worth noting that none of their weapons are advanced throughout the movie despite their ability to invent/discover time travel. Anyway, The Tomorrow War follows the same time travel rules as Avengers: Endgame: affecting the past doesn’t change the future. So, the future is fucked and pretty selfish in that they use their ancestors as cannon fodder. The endgame here deals with Forester taking a toxin back to his time and killing the Whitespikes before they ravage the Earth. The “tomorrow war” is good in concept but lazy in execution. We’re talking about time travel here, and not once does old Steve Rogers show up.
Edge of Tomorrow is a sci-fi alien invasion version of Groundhog Day. Cage is an asshole pencil-pusher with no combat experience who gets forced into storming the beach. Therefore, he dies. Fortunately, he kills an Alpha and gets covered in its blood beforehand. Boom. He wakes up and starts the day all over again. This premise allows for the same kind of character development you see in almost every Groundhog day scenario: change is made for the better and the execution here is refreshing. Edge of Tomorrow never feels repetitive despite its premise as the audience is thrown into situations not knowing exactly how many times Cage has lived them.
The Tomorrow War wants you to think that Forester was on the verge of leaving his family at the beginning of the movie but because he met his daughter in the future. It’s all very trite and melodramatic. Edge of Tomorrow doesn’t even take as much time explaining things because it doesn’t think you’re an idiot.
Winner: Edge of Tomorrow
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Action
The Tomorrow War begins with a flash-forward Forester and a bunch of other soldiers dropping from the sky into a rooftop pool because the audience needs to experience some action right away or they’ll just turn on another streaming service. The film was made on a $200 million budget and it shows. Sometimes. Other times the CGI just looks bad. Still, bullets and explosions are entertaining enough. Plus, Pratt punches a White Spike which is pretty cool.
Edge of Tomorrow’s budget was $178 million and it looks consistent all around. In the story, the United Defense Force uses mech-suits—which are used by the soldiers throughout the movie. Not only does this facilitate unique action sequences but the actors did most of their own stunts. Because Cruise. Blunt even gets a sword. Maybe modern cinema has spoiled us but The Tomorrow War’s action is pretty run of the mill.
Winner: Edge of Tomorrow
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Comedy
One can’t help but get the feeling that The Tomorrow War wants to utilize humor the same way a Marvel movie does. At the beginning of the film, one of Forester’s biology students wants to talk about Volcanoes, again. So of course that’s going to come back around in a “the nerd saves the day sort of way.” Then there’s Sam Richardson’s Gator, who feels like he should be in a completely different movie. The comedy in The Tomorrow War is just awkward, which is a shame because we all know how funny Pratt can be but they don’t let him make any jokes.
When Cage gets injured in Edge of Tomorrow, despite his insistence he’s not, Blunt’s Rita Vrataski just kills him so he can train fresh when the day reset. Half of Cruise’s deaths are really funny and that’s just an example of how the film doesn’t force humor but instead lets it happen naturally. Less jokes but better jokes.
Winner: Edge of Tomorrow
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Buff J.K Simmons
Okay, Edge of Tomorrow is kicking The Tomorrow War into tomorrow. Therefore, buff J.K. Simmons (66) gets a point. Besides, most of his dry humor film lands better than anyone else’s in the film.
Winner: The Tomorrow War
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Runtime/Final Act
Imagine how many times Blunt had to do that Yoga pose. In the third act of both these films, the ability to travel through time is removed from the equation (although, in the case of Edge of Tomorrow, this is debatable) . In The Tomorrow War, they have to go find where the White Spikes are buried before they thaw and ravage the Earth and, In Edge of Tomorrow, they have to find the Omega and kill it. So, which scenario feels direr?
Edge of Tomorrow's threat is imminent; if Cage dies, something he’s good at, he’s dead for good. The Tomorrow War discards its most interesting aspect and goes on for too long.
Runtimes
The Tomorrow War: 138 minutes.
Edge of Tomorrow: 113 minutes.
Winner: Edge of Tomorrow
