Tomorrowland (2015)

Film: Tomorrowland (2015)
Stars: George Clooney, Britt Robertson, Hugh Laurie, Raffey Cassidy, Tim McGraw
Director: Brad Bird
Oscar History: No nominations
Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

Disney is terrific at world-building, it's very true.  In an era where so many films seem to be borrowing from a previous film or a previous TV series for inspiration, Disney can still create unique programming (look at later this year with Pixar's Inside Out hitting the theaters).  To be fair, of course, they frequently rely on nostalgia both ours (fairy tales, historical narratives, classic books) or theirs (amusement park rides, for example) to get us there, but it's not like Tomorrowland, one of those areas of the Disney map you visit immediately when you get to the park because, hello-Space Mountain!-whose overall theme is basically just space and the future is a well-defined narrative so there's not much to build on here.  What's truly interesting about the setup to Tomorrowland, and perhaps the only time that the film feels like a Brad Bird picture is that the movie feels very much like it's creating a new world.  Unfortunately, this is about the only thing to recommend this picture, so let's get to dissecting.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film's world is a swiftly created one, one with tons of potential if the film were successful for sequels that are bigger and bolder.  We have Casey (Robertson), a plucky young student who is frequently breaking into a NASA launch pad to stop the destruction of the Space Shuttle program (you know, typical kid stuff).  She's also an eternal optimist, someone who is trying to find the darkness in the world and turn up the sunny stick with sheer determination.  There's a terrific little moment early in the film where I thought I was going to love this character where, after hearing lectures about decaying infrastructure, global warming, and the coming dystopia, she raises her hand to a teacher and says, "how can we fix it?" and I wanted to reach through the screen and congratulate her since I HATE defeatist attitudes and it seems to be all I encounter anymore.  That being said, she comes across a pin that serves as an advertisement for a place called Tomorrowland where it actually takes you to this beautiful futuristic city that launches rockets into space and where people fly around in jet packs. Through a series of events where she's attacked by evil comic book store robots (you know, typical kid stuff), she comes across a former but jaded child who was recruited decades ago named Frank (Clooney) who takes them to Tomorrowland via a rocket ship in the Eiffel Tower.  There they stop the impending apocalypse with, I don't know-it gets too convoluted and ridiculous at that point to be taken seriously.

The film's message is really its core problem.  It somehow views the world through a weirdly both anti-capitalistic and anti-government lens that seems at odds with the Mouse House, which has created a branding that is rivaled by pretty much no one.  The film has a nice old-school children's movie vibe, like it would be at home in the 1970's, which I will admit is refreshing for a while.  You can imagine Tomorrowland being one of those movies you own in a giant, glossy-plastic VHS case from Disney to put next to Bedknobs and Broomsticks and Pete's Dragon.  However, the film loses me when it tries too hard to rely on idealism, and particularly in the way that it treats its "villain," Hugh Laurie's Governor Nix.  Governor Nix is a pretty decent man, and someone who is trying to help Earth in his own way.  He is considered a monster because he's been projecting a future that could happen, not one that will happen, and that he is to be blamed for people giving up hope.  To this I say, "utterly ridiculous, and quite frankly dangerous."  I think hope is always something you need to sell, but the problems that they are showing in the other world (war, famine, climate change) aren't just happening because of a lack of hope-they're happening because of a lack of sacrifice and planning and reality.  People in the real world aren't just accepting these fates-they're out-and-out denying they're a problem.  This really bothered me because it didn't jive with the Casey we met at the beginning of the film who tries and stop the decline in science and feels like she wants to tie up her bootstraps and get-to-work.  The reason she was special wasn't that she was a dreamer, as the film focuses on, but because she was a fighter.  This is also what the final Benetton-style ending to the film goes with, picking up noble people around the world who want to help.  If this movie gets more people involved in worthy charities and demanding action from businesses and governments, then god bless and it was worth the price of admission, but the film's actual message is that the government and business can't help you, and that being optimistic is the only solution.  That's not really a valid message, and the weird need to kill off Governor Nix for trying to inform is exceedingly cruel and off-putting.

It's worth noting that the film doesn't always use the world it builds too well.  The movie waits too long to get us to Tomorrowland, and too quickly discards the fascinating city.  Either we should have spent more time there with a young Frank or they shouldn't have been captured so quickly, but I loved the creative designs of the city and wanted to see a little more of Casey's interactions with them (because she's not really a great character, frequently being more of a question-asker than problem-solver, which is going against the film's central message, and Robertson is fine, but gets a B- from the Chloe Moretz School of Acting as she can't find a balance between emotional and pluckish and seems to spend most moments trying to be the Hugo star).  Some of the coolest aspects of the art direction included the amazing suspended pools where people dive down stories of water (there was an audible wow from the children sitting behind me at the theater at that moment, and I shared in it), the fascinating deconstruction of the Eiffel Tower, and the way the film is obsessed with transportation in so many forms.  I would have liked a little bit more creativity in the human world if the film is actually going to get an Oscar nomination, but there are enough creative elements to make me think that could happen.

Overall, though, that's probably the only parts I really loved.  The acting is okay (Clooney and Laurie are both watchable in almost anything, but no one's stretching any muscles here) and the writing as I pointed out is too chaotic to be something to celebrate.  Overall, I'm glad that Disney continues to find original content worthwhile and is one of the few studios that can create universes that don't feel like I had to read the book first or are just derivative of a  movie I saw two decades ago, but they need to remember story first, effects second.