TOMORROWLAND (2015)

Genre: Sci-Fi/Adventure
Director: Brad Bird
Cast: George Clooney, Hugh Laurie, Britt Robertson, Raffey Cassidy, Tim McGraw, Judy Greer, Kathryn Hahn, Keegan-Michael Key, Thomas Robinson
Runtime: 2 hrs 10 mins
Rating: PG (Some Violence)
Released By: Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures 
Official Website: http://movies.disney.com/tomorrowland/

Opening Day: 21 May 2015

Synopsis: From Disney comes two-time Oscar® winner Brad  Bird’s riveting, mystery adventure “Tomorrowland,” starring Academy Award® winner George Clooney. Bound by a shared destiny, former boy-genius Frank (Clooney), jaded by disillusionment, and Casey (Britt Robertson), a bright, optimistic teen bursting with scientific curiosity, embark on a danger-filled mission to unearth the secrets of an enigmatic place somewhere in time and space known only as “Tomorrowland.” What they must do there changes the world—and them—forever. Featuring a screenplay by “Lost” writer and co-creator Damon Lindelof and Brad Bird, from a story by Lindelof & Bird & Jeff Jensen, “Tomorrowland” promises to take audiences on a thrill ride of nonstop adventures through new dimensions that have only been dreamed of.

Movie Review:

Very little has been said by its creators about ‘Tomorrowland’, so you can’t quite blame us for feeling skeptical about this amusement-park adaptation. After all, pretty much all we know is that it has something to do with a teenage girl named Casey (Britt Robertson) who comes into possession of a magic pin capable of transporting her into the titular metropolis, almost just as soon finds herself being chased by a couple of ‘men in black’, and is saved (reluctantly) by a grumpy scientist played by George Clooney who has a rocket attached to his second-floor bathroom tub. But as we’ve come to realise, there is a good reason for all that secrecy; indeed, if there’s one thing we will say now that we have been there and back, it is that the thrill is in the journey of discovering.

Framing the narrative that follows is Clooney’s curmudgeon inventor Frank Walker, who tussles with an off-camera female voice at the start over how to explain the context for our benefit. When he finally gets started, we find ourselves being acquainted with Frank when he was a young boy (Thomas Robinson), who brings his first big invention to the 1964 New York World’s Fair. A retrofitted Electrolux vacuum cleaner that he intends as a jet pack, the contraception is scoffed at by a dismissive Hugh Laurie, but greeted with admiration by an enigmatic wise-beyond-her-years young girl named Athena (Raffey Cassidy). Athena invites Frank to follow her without telling him where she is headed, but after a brief ride through a wink-wink attraction called ‘It’s A Small World’, Frank ends up making his first trip to the gleaming city of the future, or to be more accurate, a city situated on a whole different plane.

Fast-forward many years later, and we are in Cape Canaveral, Fla, where we meet Casey for the first time. The daughter of a NASA engineer (Tim McGraw), Casey sabotages the imminent demolition of a NASA rocket launch site in hopes of keeping the space programme going (and her father from being out of job). Her latest attempt gets her caught, and it is upon being bailed out that she first finds the small pin with a ‘T’ emblazoned on it. Her initial shock and disbelief aside, Casey is fascinated by the shiny skyscrapers at the end of the golden wheat fields and naturally heads right towards them to find swooping highways, crystal spires, airborne automobiles, and spectacular multi-level cylinder-like swimming pools that allow you to plunge one into another. It’s spectacular all right, and we are invited to share Casey’s awe in a single extended tracking shot that follows her monorail ride through the futuristic city.

Alas, the future which Casey glimpsed is already in the past, and as she soon learns from she-who-gifted-the-pin Athena, the Tomorrowland of today is a hollowed-out mausoleum glass towers no thanks to Professor Nix (Laurie). This is also where we stop, and leave the rest for you to find out layer by layer. Why was Frank and Athena booted out of Tomorrowland? What is that invention Athena talks about which should never have been invented? How is this tied to Casey, or for that matter, the fate of the present world as she knows it? TV’s Lost creator Damon Lindelof is one of the two screenwriters here, so be warned that his story does keep its cards very close to its chest, revealing just enough at each turn to sustain your intrigue. And yes, there’s no denying that Lindelof, who co-wrote the script with director Brad Bird, has woven an engrossing mystery about the intertwining fates of three distinct characters that are surprisingly well-defined next to one another.

Like we said earlier, the thrill is in the journey of discovering; and sure enough, what we eventually find is somehow not quite as exciting or groundbreaking as one may come to anticipate. To reveal the destination would inevitably spoil the trip itself, but suffice to say that Bird tries to make a statement about the future that pop culture seems all too happy to sell us these days (think dystopian fiction like ‘The Hunger Games’ or ‘Divergent’) and ends with a call to action. Yes, many commentators have already pointed out the film’s message on how inaction and nonchalance leads to a self-fulfilling prophecy of doom and destruction, and notwithstanding Bird’s noble intentions at using a big-budget studio movie to put across an earnest plea for imagination, hope and collective will, let us warn those who don’t like to be lectured that it does get extremely preachy right before it ends.

That however proves to be the lesser of its faults. Saddled with the need to deliver blockbuster action, Bird relegates the second half of his movie to a glorified chase movie. From Frank’s house of booby traps to the Eiffel Tower and all the way to Tomorrowland before the big finish, we get the equivalent of a souped-up kiddie flick, so much so that when the Paris landmark transforms into an interstellar rocket ship launcher, we are left unimpressed. Conversely, too little time is spent in and around where we actually are spellbound, such that the Tomorrowland we see seems like the build-up for a ride that never took off, which is unfortunately how we end up feeling about the entire film once the answers we are looking for are in essence told to us through clunky exposition delivered in part by Clooney and in part by Laurie.

As committed and lively as the performances are, there is little emotional connection with any of the characters. That is also another unlucky consequence of Lindelof and Bird’s storytelling, which focuses so much on its central mystery and then on its didactic message that it fails to build genuine poignancy in the unlikely bond between Frank and Casey or the romance between Frank and Athena. The latter in particular is supposed to be the heart of the film, as Athena not only delivers a heartfelt message to Frank at the end but is the very catalyst for his change of heart. Clooney is in fine form as Frank, but it is his younger female co-stars Robertson and Cassidy that steal the show with their spunk and verve.

For a film supposed to move its audience to think bold and stay positive, ‘Tomorrowland’ comes off feeling just ‘meh’. There is excitement in finding out what it is all about, but once we do and that veil of secrecy is lifted, we are left thinking ‘so, that’s it?’ And yet for all its promise, it neither leaves you much inspired nor even enthused; instead, it leaves you wanting, wanting for more adventure, more heart, more wow, and most of all, more of Tomorrowland. 

Movie Rating:

(Like a seemingly thrilling theme park ride that never quite delivers a satisfying payoff at the end, Brad Bird’s ‘Tomorrowland’ offers a thrill in the journey but sadly not in the discovery of what it really is)

Review by Gabriel Chong