And I liked it.
It is a film that should resonate with the Daily Kos crowd - it has liberal politics, evil robots who smile too much, George Clooney, and a positive message.
More below the squiggle.
The basic plot of the film is fairly straightforward. And that is good, as it allows the director (Brad Bird, a director for whom I have great respect - his films “The Iron Giant” and”The Incredibles”worked on many levels) to do the little things that raise film from the simple ‘let’s blow some shit up!’ adventure that has overrun the market with some actual plot and character.
The main character is not George Clooney’s Frank Walker - it is a young Casey Newton, played very nicely by Britt Robertson (who I admit I had never heard of before - according to IMDB, she’s been working since the turn of the century), who plays an idealist who sees the horrific stuff happening to the world around her, and asks “what can be done about it?” (Literally. In a montage early on, it shows her in school, with her teachers showing the decline of the world in many forms (political, ecological, social), and she’s the one who asks “What can be done to help?”). Her activism gets her arrested, and when checking out of jail on bail, she finds a pin in her personal effects that was not there before. And when she touches the pin, she is transported to Tomorrowland... but only virtually. Which leads to some nice comedy relief.
Being very bright, she does research, and finds out some things about the pin and follows up on them. Probably not enough research, as she finds Bad People who want to get the pin from her,and also finds the person who gave her the pin, played by Raffey Cassidy, who turns out to be a pivotal character. Together, they seek out Clooney’s character, and that’s where the action kicks into high gear. There is enough shit blowing up in one scene for any teen boy, and after that scene, the go to Paris (via teleport) and demolish the Eiffel Tower in some very nice CGI (though I would have done it differently) in their attempt to get back to Tomorrowland.
Which, it turns out, is in a parallel dimension. And as a lifelong fan of Science Fiction, they handled that aspect of it pretty well. Other SF fans will likely think “I recognize that!” or “well done” from time to time in the exposition bits here.
Tomorrowland is run by the despotic Hugh Laurie, and this is the part of the movie that worked the least well for me. Laurie is a good actor, and I remember very fondly watching “An evening with Fry and Laurie” on CBC, but the character is supposed to be the leader of Tomorrowland, which was built as an idealistic, scientific solution to the troubles of the world by Tesla, Verne, Wells and Edison. And they got all of the scientific stuff right - jet packs, flying cars, stellar travel, robots - all of that stuff. But they lost their idealism. They got practical about it all, and it went to hell.
Sound familiar, Kossacks?
When they get to the reveal of the Maguffin (which, truth be told, is a slow point in the movie, and felt as though they sacrificed story for exposition, and you know that’s one of the reasons the critics have not been kind) it is very much on the nose. Laurie explains how (paraphrased) ‘We told the world what was wrong, and they didn’t fix it!’ So Tomorrowland cut itself off from the world, and spiraled into darkness. That speech was, as I mentioned, on the nose a bit, but felt very familiar to someone who has read it very often here. What was missing (and what Clooney and Robertson’s characters have to provide) is The Solution.
And that part works for me. I wish the film were doing better at the box office. But the critics are not being kind. Makes me wonder who they work for. (Ahem).
Go see it, and let me know if you agree.