Movie Review: ‘Tomorrowland’

I’ve been anxiously awaiting the release of Brad Bird’s Tomorrowland ever since I first heard about the “mystery box” from the Disney archives, whose contents sparked the imagination of screenwriter Damon Lindelof and gave birth to the idea for the film. The film was one of my most anticipated releases of the year, and I was convinced that it would establish itself as a bold new entry in the realm of science fiction and adventure.

Well, you can’t win ’em all, right?

Our story opens with a narration from Frank (George Clooney), who attempts to recount his trip to the 1964 World’s Fair as a young boy, amid frequent interruptions from an unknown second narrator. Young Frank (Thomas Robinson) hopes to be recognized for his invention – a jet pack which doesn’t quite work as intended – but is dismissed by a condescending judge (Hugh Laurie) who deems Frank’s creation useless and impractical.

Luckily, Frank’s optimism catches the eye of a young girl named Athena (Raffey Cassidy), who provides him with a lapel pin marked with the letter “T.” This pin comes in handy a short while later, as it transports Frank to Tomorrowland, a city whose aesthetic is heavily influenced by the area of Disneyland that serves as its namesake.

It’s at this point that our second narrator is revealed to be Casey (Britt Robertson), a young woman who lives with her father and brother near Cape Canaveral. A similar “T” pin finds its way into her possession, and she’s amazed to discover that touching the item instantly transports her to a new world, the likes of which she’s never seen. But the trick only lasts for so long, and when the pin stops working, Casey is determined to find out its secrets.

Inexplicably, the beginning of Casey’s quests for answers results in a dramatic shift in tone, with Tomorrowland shedding its “light-hearted adventure” exterior and emerging as an action-heavy sci-fi thriller, full of murderous robots and futuristic weaponry – not to mention a ramshackle house with more booby traps than Home Alone. It’s a jarring change of pace that comes seemingly out of nowhere, and the film never quite recovers.

It’s not until the third act that we get to see Tomorrowland again, and the version that Casey and Frank experience is markedly different than the sleek, shiny metropolis glimpsed in the film’s early moments. Not that it matters, anyway – after spending three quarters of the film trying to reach the idyllic utopia, we’re only here about twenty minutes or so before the credits begin to roll, and most of the time in between is spent trying to absorb the massive amount of expository dialogue from the film’s “villain.”

If there’s one good thing about Tomorrowland, it’s the visuals, and Bird does a tremendous job with the retro sci-fi aesthetic. The sequences where Casey repeatedly hops between Tomorrowland and our own world are fabulous, and the few minutes we spend there before her pin stops working are some of the film’s best-looking moments. If only the rest of the film were as polished as the glimmering towers and sleek walkways of that other world, we’d be in pretty good shape.

Clooney’s one-note performance as the sourpuss old scientist wears out its welcome pretty quickly, although there are some interesting developments for his character in the film’s later stages. Robertson fares much better as the impulsive, high-strung adventurer, but the script doesn’t give her much to do beyond adhering to a tried-and-true archetype. Bird spends the entire film trying to tell us just how special Casey is – but we never actually see anything to back up that claim, so it’s hard to become invested in the idea that she can somehow make everything alright.

Tomorrowland promises that we will be whisked away to an astonishing new world full of wonder and whimsy, where dreamers can bring their imaginations to life in grand fashion. Regrettably, the filmmakers don’t come anywhere close to delivering on that promise – instead, Tomorrowland is a muddled collection of stunning visuals, half-baked ideas and clunky storytelling, and will likely only be remembered as a colossal disappointment in Bird’s otherwise stellar career as a filmmaker.