How entertaining?     ★★★☆☆
Thought provoking? ★★★☆☆

17 May 2015

This a movie review of TOMORROWLAND a.k.a. TOMORROWLAND - A WORLD BEYOND.

By Hemanth Kissoon

“Clocks counting down are bad,” Casey Newton (Britt Robertson)
 
Old-fashioned sprightly action-adventure has been tied to modern whizz-bang technical filmmaking, for a blockbuster skewing towards the younger members of the audience without alienating older patrons. Positivity woven into the fabric of a movie reminds of early Spielberg and current JJ Abrams. Odds stacked against the protagonists do not twist their optimistic outlooks but instead feed the drive. Making the world a better place is literal and figuratively writ large across TOMORROWLAND. “He thinks you can fix the world,” David (Hugh Laurie) states to lead Casey. When she finds out humankind’s dire straits, a sort of doomsday clock ticking towards population evisceration is now 59 days away, it galvanises.    

Genius level intellect, TOMORROWLAND is a celebration of those harnessing cranial gifts in a humanistic desire for advancement. Instead of the chosen one being another dude, the creative team have progressively chosen a lady. At last. (This, and MAD MAX: FURY ROAD, May 2015 has perhaps suddenly seen a sea change in big budget cinema; let’s wait and see…) Casey is Hermione from ‘Harry Potter’, sans sidekicks, all brains and gumption, and a Dumbledore equivalent has been found in Frank Walker (George Clooney) – who also shares a melancholy story arc.

Robots, jet packs, flying cars, rocket ships – all the stuff of childhood fantasy – are addressed by filmmakers aware of how to fire youthful imagination. The brightest scientists and artists, who have existed for the last 100 years, have created a parallel world. Up until recently, child robot Athena (Raffey Cassidy) has been a recruitment talent scout helping to populate Tomorrowland, a utopia sans bureaucracy, politics and greed created to further knowledge, which can only be reached via certain portals. Athena’s new mission is to find someone who can help deactivate a machine in Tomorrowland that is the reason for the 59-day deadline. Casey sabotaging cranes deconstructing a N.A.S.A. launch pad in Cape Canaveral is how she comes onto Athena’s radar.

Rebellious teenage hijinks is not Casey’s raison d’être, her motivating force is the same as Matthew McConaughey’s in INTERSTELLAR: The railing against the demise of ideas and curiosity. Wide-eyed hope in a world in short supply is a commonality between Brad Bird’s film and Christopher Nolan’s. The former’s though, never reaches the highs, or the lows, of the latter’s. Director Bird is a past master at cinematic adrenaline (see THE INCREDIBLES and MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE – GHOST PROTOCOL), but has not quite brought his A game. Melees are energetic and at times inventive, but surprisingly do not quicken the pulse; maybe because they are too brief? Said melees are on the cards due to an enemy striving to thwart Casey, Athena and Frank, who eventually team up to increase the already heavy doses of audacity and resourcefulness.
 
Banter quietly zings, not drawing attention to itself, as the 130 minutes are raced through. The uplifting message is hammered home, though not annoyingly; shame then that the experience does not linger.    

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