Film Review: Tomorrowland
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There is much discussion about ideas and amazement in Tomorrowland, the new Disney film directed by Brad Bird. And for all intents and purpose, this is an wonder driven movie. Wonder in different worlds, wonder in humanity’s purpose, wonder of technology, all of these come up in the film.However, these ideas never settle into more than words and the scenes in this film fail to cohere into a film. In short, Tomorrowland spends its time concerned about the concept of amazing without actually amazing its audience.
Tomorrowland reminded me of Interstellar, as both film try and implore the audience through speeches about invention and bemoaning the lack of advancement of technology (our heroine’s immediate goal is to break into a NASA base and keep them from destroying a tower). But whereas Nolan’s film, preposterous though its plot mechanics are, at least feels like a movie, Tomorrowland feels like a bunch of things that could have made up a good movie. There’s a couple of good scenes, one phenomenal performance, and good talent. So how then did the film go wrong?
Well the odds overwhelmingly point toward the script written by Damon Lindeloff and Brad Bird, particularly in its structure. While this reviewer has no issue with movies that are not structured to Hollywood classical structure, there is something to be said for how a movie’s composition affects the finished product. Pointing back again to Interstellar (I’m ending with this comparison lest y’all think I liked that movie), which lets you know what the problems are and then drops a mega ton bomb on your head, Tomorrowland wants to wait to do all of this at once. This should not be the case as this movie has an ample running time but these two men couldn’t decide on just what the course of action should be.
For example, in the first 20 minutes we start with a flash forward with George Clooney and Brit Robertson bantering before we jump to a flashback to Clooney’s character’s younger self to the present day where we meet Robertson’s character and the only important thing in any of this footage is a ticking countdown clock. That’s 20 minutes of screen time where we don’t know what the real problems are or how the characters came to create those problems or how these characters have the tools to fix them! These are fundamental things the audience needs at some point and the movie barely doles them out once you move into endless chase sequences, introductions to deus ex machina-esque particles, and an exposition heavy last 30 minutes. I honestly can’t tell you half of what the villain said in the last 20 or so mins of the movie cause it was delivered in a monologue so outrageously long I tuned out about 10 words in.
The script in this way is like a black hole, threaten to suck out any and all enjoyment from the movie. It’s uneven as hell and movie felt like it had a big budget but they were forced to shoot with indie constraints. By this I mean were it not for the big set pieces, this was simply a poorly written intimate character drama. Brad Bird is a gifted filmmaker, and while he can still dazzle, he’s saddled with trying to make a film work that just can’t. Even Tomorrowland (which wasn’t featured nearly enough) can’t really manage to feel more than a concept of how amazing Tomorrowland could be.
One of the main casualties of these tonal struggles is Brit Robertson who plays Casey. She’s an actress that people seem to like and she has a kind of aw shucks wholesomeness that should have worked for this movie but she never stretches past this in the film, in part because the movie doesn’t ask her to, which is a shame. Her character is the daughter of a NASA engineer, she can apparently just make things work, and believes so passionately about keeping her father in a job she breaks into NASA and disables cranes. And yet, Robertson can’t help the character from falling flat because past that intro she doesn’t do much. Clooney plays the roguish inventor and in a magnificent turn Raffey Cassidy plays the most kick ass little girl ever, but Casey seems to just be along for the ride. In a world where we just saw even the most minor characters in Mad Max: Fury Road prove useful, they could have let this heroine contribute more than one decent idea.
The one bright spot in this film is Athena played by the aforementioned Cassidy, a girl tasked with recruiting new dreamers. From the moment she steps on screen, she snatches the film away from everyone and becomes the film’s surprising moral center and grounded character. I wanted nothing more than to see her on screen being awesome and wonderful. She has some wonderful scenes with George Clooney that manage to be the best parts of the film.
Tomorrowland thus enters into the pantheon of movies that have not be able to live up to their overwhelming promise. It’s too bad because we could have used a movie that was amazing, but this aint it.
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