The Tomorrow War. Photo: VCG

American sci-fi blockbuster The Tomorrow War, which reportedly became one of the most-streamed films in the US days after it started streaming on video platforms on July 2, seems to be unable to satisfy Chinese audiences. On China's Twitter-like Weibo, many users grumbled the film was "illogical" and "absurd," saying they're bored of the bombastic America-style narration of US heroes saving the globe, the Global Times found.

Heated discussion of The Tomorrow War was seen on Weibo on Friday, when a user posted a scene from the film that looks very much like Chinese students practicing military training at school. It remains unclear where the scene was originally from.

In China, many senior high schools and universities organize military training programs for students the first year they are admitted to improve their physical fitness and train their will. The programs usually last a couple of days to nearly one month.

Some users said the scene looked "steely awkward," as it appears when the film is saying the world is transporting soldiers and civilians from the present to the future, to join a life-and-death fight between humans and an alien species.

"Why do the scenes of troops from other countries look perfectly normal, but China's troops look like college students?" one user asked, adding he didn't think the film deliberately tried to defame the Chinese military.

Other users concerned about the possible risk of copyright infringement asked whether the film asked for permission before using the scene. "I hope it was not a Chinese university's video material that directors of the film downloaded from the internet," one user joked.

More users grumbled they're tired of watching Americans save the globe on the big screen. The hero role that the US always plays in Hollywood movies is inconsistent with the country's irresponsible image in reality, they said.

"Take a look at what US does in the real world: sending troops to the Middle East, withdrawing from many international organizations, launching a trade war against China...it is not a savior but a trouble maker," one wrote user.

Another user mentioned the collapsed building in Florida. "Even now the US hasn't found all the people trapped," he wrote. "How can it save the whole world with such a poor rescuing ability?"

Despite being "the top live-action streaming film so far this summer" as reported by US media on Wednesday, The Tomorrow War didn't seem to receive the same amount of praise online. Its ratings on IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic were only 6.7/10, 55% and 45%, respectively on Friday, the Global Times reporter found.

The film's rating was 6.5/10 on Chinese media review site Douban. Many Chinese audiences complained that the film tells a monotonous, illogical story consisting of omnipotent American heroes who make key contributions in saving the world, naysayer-like Russians who refuse to cooperate with the heroes, and some other dispensable countries.

"Poking fun at Russia is politically correct in American movies," a Weibo user wrote on Thursday. He referred to an unreasonable plot of the film, in which a single US transport aircraft penetrated the air defense lines of Russia.

Global Times