They are both streaming, but one should have been in theaters and the other on SyFy. So how did this creature double feature work out for the hubby and me?
LEGENDARY (2013)
I imagine this one may have been on SyFy back in its good bad days. I tossed it into my Prime watchlist because it had monsters and Dolph Lundgren, the perfect combination for intimate time with the hubby.
I ended up tossing about a dozen other action movies featuring its sexy star Scott Adkins in my watchlist for us to fill our time later.
The horrible CGI bear battle at the beginning had us hooked. Basically, Scott Adkins and his team go around the world hunting and capturing wild creatures that are terrorizing communities. Dolph Lundgren goes around the world hunting the same wild creatures to kill them.
Both groups end up on a job in China. We very quickly get a fully Monty attack of the CGI lizard monster, which seriously looks like the Geico lizard.
The events that unfold as the two teams battle to handle the issue their way are as generic as it gets, but there are some fun monster attack moments along the way.
It all leads to a trip into the monster’s lair. Would you believe there are baby lizard monsters to contend with? Would you believe Dolph shows up to thwart Scott’s plan to capture the creature? Would you believe there’s a battle between humans at the same time as they’re all trying to avoid being torn apart by the monster? Would you believe the effects are as CGI and green screen bad as a SyFy flick?
THE TOMORROW WAR (2021)
This is the big budget alien creature feature that went to Prime instead of making it to the theaters. It’s definitely a fun action/monster popcorn movie. However, not even I can eat popcorn for 2 hours and 20 minutes, no matter how much cherry cola is at my disposal to wash it down with. Listen up, filmmakers. Drawing out the running time of your film doesn’t automatically make it epic, no matter what all the superhero films these days would have you believe.
The premise is not totally original, but it gets us where we need to go. An alien species is set to destroy the earth. The government is selecting involuntary volunteers to send into the future to try to fight these alien creatures. Chris Pratt gets selected. Establishing that plot point takes about 40 minutes.
Then shit gets good. The selected group is beamed into the future in a wild scene that goes horribly wrong, and pretty soon they are thrown into a major battle against awesome alien creatures in a dystopian city. This middle segment of the film is a blast, even if there are a whole lot of time travel issues that make the plot ridiculous.
Just when this action-packed monster movie riddled with stimulating visual effects is winding down…there are 30 more minutes to go. Ugh.
The tone shifts in the final act, moving into cutesy Spielberg 80s sci-fi alien movie territory as kids and one-liners are thrown into the mix for a new battle ignited in another country.
This really does feel sort of like three different movies as it progresses, but as long as you have the time to carve out to watch it, there are definitely plenty of thrills to be had.
