Tomorrowland is kind of a mess. As far as I understood it, Tomorrowland is a
place that exists in another dimension.
It was either discovered or created by people like Nikola Tesla, Thomas
Edison and Jules Verne. It was
established as a place where the brightest, most creative thinkers and
inventors could let their imaginations run wild without the problems of
bureaucracy or politics. For some time,
it thrived with amazing things like jetpacks, rocket ships, and swimming pools
suspended in mid-air (those were really cool).
Then something happened and now it’s deserted and run down. At the same time, the end of the world is
coming unless one person can do something to stop it. The movie never explains what that one thing
is, but then I don’t think that’s the point of the movie.
The movie opens with Frank Walker (George Clooney) narrating
his part of the story. When he was a
boy, he went to the 1964 New York World’s Fair where he enters a competition
for inventors. The jet pack he created
doesn’t really work, but he meets a mysterious girl named Athena (Raffey
Cassidy). Athena gives young Frank a
special pin and leads him to Tomorrowland, a place where anything is
possible.
The look of Tomorrowland is incredible. It’s hard to be impressed by digital effects anymore
but the imagination on display just blew me away. If the movie had stuck with young Frank for a
while, it would have been much better.
Instead we immediately shift to Casey (Britt Robertson) who starts
narrating her part of the story. We jump
to the present day and watch as Casey tries to sabotage the cranes that are
demolishing the Cape Canaveral launching pad.
She gets arrested and when she gets out, she finds a Tomorrowland
pin. When she touches it, she’s able to
see Tomorrowland and this is where the movie takes off.
For a while, the movie gets pretty interesting. Casey starts investigating, meets Athena (who
hasn’t aged a day) and the old Frank, who doesn’t want to get involved in
whatever’s going on. There are
mysterious robots out to kill them and gun fights ensue. Bit by bit, Frank tells Casey about
Tomorrowland and what it all means.
Basically the first half of the movie is really fun and
interesting. Then we get to the halfway
point and it all goes downhill. The more
things are explained, the less interesting it seems. And the movie starts to get overly preachy
with its message about not giving up hope and nurturing imagination and
creativity. Those are good messages, but
it’s just too on the nose and overly melodramatic.
There are also too many details left out. I really wanted to learn more about what
happened between young Frank and Athena, or why Frank was kicked out of
Tomorrowland, or what day to day life is like there. Are people living there and raising families,
or are they just working? As cool as
Tomorrowland is, too much of the movie is set on Earth. It’s like the movie kept building and
building the anticipation, then instead of delivering it just started to
drag.
At the same time, it’s hard to hate this movie. Its heart is in the right place and there is
a really good story in there somewhere.
I feel like one or two rewrites and some tighter editing could have made
this something special. Director Brad
Bird just wanted to do too much with this story and he made the movie
overstuffed and uneven. So I guess it’s
not a bad movie, just a disappointing one.
No comments:
Post a Comment