Walt Disney Pictures, A113, Babieka,
George Clooney, Hugh Laurie, Britt Robertson, Raffey Cassidy, Tim McGraw, Kathryn Hahn, Keegan-Michael Key
Casey Newton (Britt Robertson) is a dreamer, an optimist. Frank Walker (George Clooney), on the other hand, is a pessimist. He once was a dreamer, but lost his way. The story of Tomorrowland, a Utopian city which may be the last best hope for Earth in the future, begins when Frank was a little boy. He was a child inventor, though not too successful, but he made his way to the New York Worlds Fair in 1964 to try to win. He was given a special pin that allowed him to go to Tomorrowland having been recruited by a little girl, Athena (Raffey Cassidy). Jump to today, and Casey, who’s father Eddie (Tim McGraw) worked for NASA, and she has not given up hope. She keeps reaching for the stars and surprisingly finds one of these little pins too. Together Casey, Frank, and Athena are going to try to go back to Tomorrowland and meet with Nix (Hugh Laurie) to try to repair the damage that has been done.
This was a hell of a little Science Fiction thriller from the folks at Disney with the help of Lucasfilm special effects. It’s stunning in beauty, and very, very fresh in presentation. I saw it in Imax and was blown away by the effects, and simply the beauty of the whole thing. There are many ties back to Disneyland/Walt Disney World and the New York Worlds Fair which provided Walt with some of the most beloved attractions of the parks. From the music to the scenery, even to Athena’s look and dress (She’s Wendy from Peter Pan, I swear), it’s like a trip down memory lane with a stopover in the future we all dreamed about back in the 50’s and 60’s. The story is exciting, and thrilling, and very suspenseful, and they don’t give too much away, so you get to figure it out step by step. Yes, there’s some similarities to other future world movies, but those are mostly homage rather than copying, and truthfully this is certainly one of those films that you never want to end, and you’re sad when the trailers come up. The only thing that would stop this movie from being perfect is, like Wall-E, about an hour and half or so into it they have to go off on their anti-human, anti-American global warming crap and get all preachy and stuff, but don’t let that stop you from enjoying the story. It doesn’t last long, and the preachy guy gets shut-up pretty fast, to the delight of most of the audience. I’m not sure why Disney has to get all Nazi environmentalist on us. Walt used to love and present nature in an educational way teaching us to appreciate the world without getting all “the world is going to end in 10 years if we don’t stop driving cars and producing goods” on us. I don’t want to dwell on that as I’ve gotten up on my soapbox many times about my feelings on Global Warming, so I’m not going to do it again. But that truly is the only negative I could give this film. Even George Clooney does a really decent job as the grown up Frank, which impressed me. He’s carried some heavy duty roles, but this was a stretch for him, and he did it well. Britt Robertson was really good as the dreamer who would never give up, and she was an excellent casting choice, but the absolute star of this film by far is Raffey Cassidy. She absolutely NAILED this role, and was practically perfect in every way! She did such a good job, I have to give her tons of credit. This film is not one to miss, and I must say it was one of the most enjoyable afternoons I’ve spent in a long, long time. Disney did this one really well, and I have to give them the credit for producing a wonderful film. Make sure you see this on the BIG SCREEN while you can. I highly recommend plopping down the money to see this one in the theater.
EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog
