Tomorrowland – Review
Director Brad Bird who won
Oscars for Best Animation for “The Incredibles” and “Ratatouille” and who also
direct the action packed “Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol”, takes on
another feature film starring Oscar Winner George Clooney in a mystery
adventure story called “Tomorrowland”.
The story has a bit of a time
travel plot – component to it. It is also where we find early on Clooney’s
character as a 10 year old-ish boy genius named Frank who is obsessed with his jet pack
invention. While trying to showcase his jet pack idea at the 1964 World Fair in
New York he has an encounter with a mysterious young girl of his own age named
Athena, who gives Frank a T shaped pin that catapults him into a realm where
it’s the future and people are making wonderful things for the betterment of
mankind and the earth as well.
Meanwhile back on earth years
later after Frank had disappeared a super bright and idealistic teenage girl
named Casey who sees the world slowly being destroyed has come in possession of
the same T shaped pin that Frank received years ago. To her astonishment she
discovers that when she touches it she is catapulted (back and forth) to the
same dimensional time and place as has happened to Frank when he was a young
boy.
So, the story begins as we
find a confused Casey going out to solve the mystery of what exactly the magic
pin is, where did it come from and why did someone give it to her.
PROS:
Tomorrowland has a very good intentioned heart, with real charm and warmth to
its basic core which could have you watching it simply for the overall message that
the earth is slowly and systematically being destroyed by human’s hands and
human procrastination. On the countervailing hand it also has a noble ambition to
it cinematic soul, as it wants to convey the eternal optimism that exist within
all humans to providing the lasting solutions to the world’s problems and social
ills, etc., etc.
CONS: While
its plot is well-intentioned and a lot of its message it true, it also is a very
preachy film about how current humans are not being good stewards of the earth
as we sit by and doing nothing about what is happening around us. And while I
have no doubt this film tries to reach the next generation to coming up with imaginative
and creative solutions for our blue planet, in the end the film’s effort falls
flat on getting the masses really motivated to actually doing something about
it.
Conclusion:
“Tomorrowland” has three problems. One, it is poorly written and poorly directed,
in that it felt like watching someone open a puzzle box that said 100 pieces,
only to see when its contents are spilled on to the coffee table it’s actually
more like one million pieces. The meandering dialog and direction made this
movie going experience overly complicated and frustrating to watch and listen
to.
Two, George Clooney and Hugh
Laurie are veteran actors who know their craft well and made as much of this
limited disjointed plot as interesting as they could. But the drag on the film for
me were the kids who annoyed me to no end; especially the lead character Casey who
was supposed to be the endearing, smart and
good hearted one to the story. She came across as whinny and a total
nuisance to the film, even to the point where there is a scene (which is supposed
to be funny) where she beats a robot to death with a bat more than a full
minute. It goes without saying I don’t condone any violence on children or
women, but I do know why certain species eat their young, especially if they
are as annoying as Casey.
Finally three, someone forgot
to tell Director Brad Bird he was making a feature film and not an animation
film again. For all practical purposes this movie felt like it would have been
more suited in the animation format in that it looked like and felt like an animation
film, especially with its almost animated look and visions of the future. I am
not talking about the concepts or ideas of the future, I mean literally the
physical look of the movie looked like special effects animation.
Note to Brad Bird, in the
future watch films like “Gravity”, “Mad Max” or any of the recent soon to be
release new “Star Wars” film trailers if you ever venture into this kind of technical
futuristic script again, they will serve you well for generating ideas. Or maybe
he can just find his way to doing more animation films soon.
In the end, I am not sure who
the intended audience was for this film. Was it mostly for kids? Mostly for adults?
Or both. For either audience I found unfortunately the film to be a mess that missed
its mark by being emotionally underwhelming with a wobbly story line that was structurally
incoherent.
“Tomorrowland” made me feel
more annoyed and grumpy about an important subject matter rather than optimistic.
2 Stars
