Directed by Brad Bird
Starring George Clooney, Britt Robertson, and Raffey Cassidy
Disney's made films around attractions in their theme parks before. Some of them turned out fine (Pirates of the Caribbean), and others not so much (The Haunted Mansion). A film based off Tomorrowland though? The futuristic section of Disney Land/World that's home to Space Mountain and...crap what else is there? I know The Avengers have meet & greet's in Tommorowland, Disney Land now. Man I got to check that out. Anyway, if anyone could pull off a film like this, it'd be Brad Bird, acclaimed director of The Incredibles, Ratatouille, and Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol.
Does he? Umm, kinda...
The film opens with a choppy opening prologue where a young Frank Welker (Clooney in the present, Thomas Robinson here) makes his way to the New York World's Fair to show off his self-built-but-not-really-working jet-pack. Brushed off by fair judge David Nix (Hugh Laurie), he then meets a young girl named Athena (Cassidy). She takes a shine to Frank and his enthusiasm, and gives him access to something extraordinary (I'll let you guess what that is.).
Jump forward to the present, where a young girl named Casey (Robertson) is constantly sneaking out at night to sabotage the construction equipment set to tare down a launchpad at Cape Canaveral, where her father (Tim McGraw) is an engineer. One night when Casey is caught by the cops, who but Athena, who somehow hasn't aged a day since 1964, gives her the same gift she gave Frank (Again, I'll let you guess).
This attracts the attention of some bad...cyborg cops? I don't know. Casey is soon on the run with Athena. Together they set out to find the now older, bitter, Clooney'd up Frank for help, which starts their adventure that will lead them all back to Tomorrowland.
Here's the main problem with Tomorrowland, and it's a pretty big one. That little summary I just wrote for you? Reads like act one or the first half-hour right? Well that's the first half of the film. When it comes to narrative and pacing, the film is a bit of a mess. A lot of questions are raised and aren't answered fast enough. As soon as one question is answered, three more or poised. Chunks of expository dialogue sprinkled throughout don't make it any less confusing. I haven't been exposed too much to the works of Damon Lindelof, but from what I've heard a lot of this reads like his work on Lost.
The film looks pretty enough in terms of production design. Tomorrowland looks like Tomorrowland, but frankly we've seen these sets over and over since that section of Disney Parks opened up, from The Jetsons to Meet The Robinsons. Unfortunately, we don't get to learn too much about the inner workings of Tomorrowland, which is a bit of a letdown.
How about the cast? First off kudos to the studio for having George Clooney take a backseat to two young, female, relatively unknown actresses, who clearly have bright futures ahead of them. Clooney and Laurie, are Clooney and Laurie. Good as they've ever been, and do the best with the material given to them.
Now as messy as this film's script is, I think it's important to note that's its message is clear, and it's an important message. Laurie's character believes society has given up, and fallen in love with the idea of the apocalypse, of the end. Now look at some of the most popular film series out right now: The Hunger Games, The Maze Runner, Divergent, the list goes on. We really almost have given into the notion that things will get worse. It was in this moment I went, "Wow. This film might be onto something." Robertson, Clooney, and Cassidy's characters are the opposite of Laurie's. They're the optomists. They believe things can get better.
The message to hold onto optimism, that we can make things better, is an important one. Some critics argue that Tomorrowland shoves that message down the viewers' throats. I don't agree, but maybe that's the idea, dammnit. In a world, in a culture, where it's almost instinct to go straight for the negative, the idea of staying positive has to stay alive. If we want things to get better, we have to do something, we can't just complain. That's a great message for a film like Tomorrowland to have, but unfortunately, it's message is skewed to a sloppy narrative.
If you'd like to read more into the film, or you've seen it and are still pondering it like I was, I recommend you read Haleigh Foutch's article on the film over at Collider. Her write-up definitely gave me a better appreciation of the film.
As the old Disney song says, there's a great big beautiful tomorrow. Tomorrowland doesn't quite get us there, but it's a step in the right direction.
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