Film Review- "Tomorrowland"

Tomorrowland
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.

Film Review- "Avengers: Age Of Ultron"

Avengers: Age of Ultron
Directed by Joss Whedon
Starring Robert Downey Jr, Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson, and James Spader

It's hard to believe that a sequel to The Avengers could live up to all the hype. It did what no superhero film had done before, teaming up multiple characters from multiple films. It became beloved by fans and critics alike, and is now the third highest grossing film of all time.

So after the months of epic trailers and juicy gossip, how does Age of Ultron stack up alongside Avengers, and other films of the Marvel Cinematic Universe? After seeing the film for a third time in theaters (Judge me), I say it falls in the…upper-middle of the pack. Let's begin.

After going their separate ways for another round of solo films/adventures, Tony Stark/Iron Man, Steve Rogers/Captain America, Thor (and the rest!) have reassembled to take down Hydra (Who you'll remember reemerged in Captain America: The Winter Soldier). While raiding one of the last Hydra facilities in Sokovia, Tony (Downey) makes a startling discovery, and shown a very grim hallucination via Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen). This leads him, along with Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo) to jumpstart an artificial intelligence, word-peace keeping program Ultron (Spader).

Unfortunately, Ultron becomes a little too smart for his own good. The menacing machine soon sets out to put an end to The Avengers, and all of mankind. The team sets out on an worldwide mission to stop Ultron, while also dealing with the super-powered siblings of Wanda and Pietro Maximoff (Aaron-Taylor Johnson) aka Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver.

It may not seem like it based on that short summary, but there's a lot going on in this film. A lot of story, and a lot of characters. A heavy burden falls down on Age of Ultron. It has to act as a sequel to not just The Avengers but in some respects to Iron Man 3, Thor: The Dark World, and Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Then it has to continue to set-up this ever expanding universe, as we prepare to go in to a huge Phase Three of the MCU, which will culminate in the third (and fourth) Avengers film, Infinity War.

Age of Ultron manages to balance a lot of its story elements...for most of the film. Some things at times are left unattended or under developed. There's so much going on you might find yourself scratching your head saying, "Wait when did that happen?" or "Wait how did we get here?" That being said, there's so much awesome, fan-pleasing moments here you might forget your concerns, because you're so enamored with what's on screen. The action scenes are some of the best in the franchise. Your eyes will be glued to the screen in awe.

Somehow, all the characters old and new, get their proper chance to shine. The one exception would have to be Thor, who halfway through the film is subjected to an underdeveloped subplot that factors into where this massive franchise is heading. Hawkeye truly get his due in this film, and is one of the best parts of it. What they've done to explain where he's been through all of Phase Two is beautiful. Hulk and Black Widow are given a romance this film. You wouldn't think it'd work, but it really grows on you, and it gives some great material to Ruffalo and Johansson. The new characters, The Vision (Paul Bettany) in particular, are great additions. I won't go into everyone's individual performances, because I think you all know by now how great this ensemble is.

Some people would say Ultron succombs to the cliche that Marvel can't make a good villain. I am not one of those people. Much like Ronan in Guardians of the Galaxy, while his motivations are one-dimensional and his character development is rushed, the actor behind the performance accelerates the character to a higher level. James Spader is at his very best as Ultron.

It's already been revealed that Joss Whedon's original cut of the film was about three and-a-half hours long (That means we missed out on an hour of footage, for those trying to do the math.), and that an extended cut will be featured on the Blu-Ray release. Hopefully this extended cut film and Whedon's original cut are one and the same, because I really feel like adding some of that hour's worth of footage would really strengthen the film.

Let me be clear, I really do enjoy Age of Ultron. It's as funny, action-packed, and fan pleasing as Marvel gets, and is arguably one of the better films in the cinematic universe. I loved it the first two times I saw it, the third time I was starting to see the cracks in the foundation. Another draft of the script, another hour in the editing bay, something could have been done to flesh the story out a bit more.  That being said, do not let that dissuade you from seeing it. It's still a wonder to see all of your favorite characters together again, and the good outweighs the bad here. No doubt Age of Ultron will still become one of the best films of the year.