ith an inordinate amount of luck, James Daniel Forester (Chris Pratt) falls from a stormy, rainy sky to land in a skyscraper’s rooftop swimming pool (mere inches away from smacking into the concrete perimeter). This strange cold open immediately cuts, before anything significant can happen, to 28 years earlier, during December 2022, when Dan struggles to procure a job that can be more lucrative and fulfilling than his current work as a high school biology teacher – which he acquired after his years in the military and his love of army research labs. His loving wife Emmy (Betty Gilpin) and 9-year-old daughter Muri (Ryan Kiera Armstrong) help him through the tough holiday season, distracting him from his feelings of inadequacy. “I’m meant to do something special with my life.”

Suddenly, during a FIFA World Cup event, a platoon of futuristic soldiers emerges on the field from some sort of time-traveling wormhole, pleading to humans of 2022 that if they don’t join them in battle, humanity will be wiped off the face of the Earth (an extinction-level event) in a matter of decades. And just like that, the military begins sending troops into the future to fight aliens. But the mortality rate is incredibly high, provoking international governments to organize a worldwide draft; thousands of people every week are sent away to die in a war of tomorrow.

“The aliens kill us all.” The premise is introduced so quickly and with so few details that it’s difficult to follow along with the unfathomable concepts and reactions. “What are the requirements for conscription?” asks Dan, who, despite existing in the world of this movie, knows nothing about the very specific procedures for military duty, time travel, the enemy, or the technology now at their disposal. Instead, lengthier scenes of dialogue are reserved for tough-love speeches between Dan and his estranged father James (J.K. Simmons). It’s one thing to keep audiences in the dark; but when the fictional characters themselves are so inexplicably ignorant, it’s simply aggravating – or, worse, uninteresting.

“The jump-link doesn’t work that way.” Thanks to some brief explanations, the rules of time-travel are precise and unquestionable. Or, rather, the film hopes that viewers won’t bother to ponder all the ways the plot doesn’t hold up. Perhaps that’s for the best, if the purpose of all of this is to say that war is hell. But the absolutely astonishing amount of luck and coincidence that drive Dan and his crew (including comic-relief team members Charlie [Sam Richardson], Cowan [Mike Mitchell], and Norah [Mary Lynn Rajskub]) are routinely too much to digest. The warriors from the future essentially provide zero training or intel to the recruits of the past, making their lack of panic and surprising levels of discipline (or obedience) purely unbelievable qualities. “Did he just say they eat us?”

Storytelling clearly isn’t the priority here; instead, once the alien attackers are finally shown in full, the picture is all about sci-fi action. In the vein of “Starship Troopers,” the creatures are so fast and numerous that the heavy firepower is never heavy enough; rather than machine guns, these conscripts need rocket launchers or laser weapons. And the combat plans are always insufficient, enabling countless casualties; bodies are apparently easy to acquire and quite expendable. Essentially, the film is a series of set pieces and location changes orchestrated around enormous fight sequences.

To its credit, the monster onslaughts are engaging, if for no other reason than the loud noises, continual devastation, frenetic assaults, and video game aesthetics of mowing down hordes of enemies. They may not amount to much, but in the moment they’re exciting, with alternating effectiveness based on practical effects and CG movements and complicated (though oddly familiar) alien designs. Unfortunately, despite a few twists of relationship drama involving the Romeo Command Colonel (Yvonne Strahovski), boasting a decently emotional exchange, the time-travel aspect gets sticky and intrusive; in many ways, this tale could have been told without that troublesome device, especially since multiple timelines aren’t expressly established. Otherwise, as soon as someone travels backwards then forwards again, they could easily manipulate the future and witness the results (unless monumental changes in society, the government, and the nation wouldn’t ultimately alter an inevitable alien invasion).

By the end, with its tremendous running time, there’s nearly two movies worth of content. Predicaments with the future are only half the issue; there are plenty of conflicts in the present day to sort out, too – hoping to be relevant with a message about human-amplified global warming. It does, of course, allow for additional opportunities to exhibit action and explosions and changes of scenery – and an inanely silly final showdown and parting shots.

– Mike Massie