Tomorrowland works more as an idea than a place, yet as a film it soars higher than any live action Disney film in recent years. That’s a bold statement, I know, but not since the first “Pirates of the Caribbean” has something been crafted so lovingly that its finished product allowed its highs to outweigh its lows. The film was stuck in pre-production for some years until Brad Bird could finally get the project launched, changing the title from 1952 to Walt Disney’s themed land. Bird, known for idealistic adventure stories like the The Iron Giant and The Incredibles, blesses this film with the same delightful charm.
The story involves Casey Newton (Britt Robertson) and Frank Walker (George Clooney), two dreamers with a shared destiny. That is, both find the magical place of Tomorrowland, created allegedly by the world’s brightest and most creative people (so creative they built a secret rocket ship within the Eiffel Tower). Casey is a creative misfit, longing for something more in her life; Frank, a reclusive genius expelled from Tomorrowland for creating a doomsday device that threatened our world and theirs. Our heroes must return to Tomorrowland to disarm the device and save the world.
This where the film becomes a fun little mess. The plot, though fairly straightforward, isn’t revealed to us in the most organized way. The scenes play out like a mystery film, revealing bits and pieces of the overall scheme. It’s exciting in some instances, like the moment Casey realizes two toy shop owners are actually killer robots. The twist is random but the resulting action is spectacular. The ongoing surprises are always dazzling, emulating adventure stories like E.T. or Raiders of the Lost Ark.
The biggest confusion is the doomsday device itself. What it is, where it came from and how it functions are all explained through tiny fragments of dialogue in the film, and finally in the end by one long-winded speech delivered by a cranky Hugh Laurie. Our heroes have made it to Tomorrowland, and have to shut the device off which is apparently stimulated by people’s belief in themselves (at least, that’s what I understand). The device is monitored by the corrupt dictator Governor Nix (Laurie) who has subdued our heroes and allowed himself a villainous monologue and, while I won’t analyze the speech, I will state why I don’t think it works.
At this point in the film, we’ve heard A LOT about Tomorrowland: how breathtaking it was, how great it was going to be and how its existence is essential to saving our world. Furthermore, we’ve seen glimpses through the brief trips Casey’s taken there and the numerous flashbacks between young Frank and Athena the robot. This is fine, but by the time we arrive the finale is nearly finished and what we thought was a utopia has become a dystopia. Why don’t we get more screen time in Tomorrowland? Why talk more and show less? This is exactly the problem with Nix’s speech. He speaks of simultaneous obesity and starvation, global warming and social unrest yet we never see any of this. The most we see of world chaos is a grizzled George Clooney in a television control room. If the filmmakers wanted to make a bold political statement about the world they should have spent more time illustrating it.
The film shares the same worldview as Wall E, except what that film did better was illustrate its point exactly without political banter. Hell, Wall E hardly used dialogue.
Yet in some ways, I’m not sure that the film’s core objective is to condemn humanity, but to wake it up. Perhaps it’s a strength of the film for most of this chaos to go unseen. Anything Disney would show us would look paraphrased or insulting. Instead, the characters we follow are completely fleshed out, and anything social and political serves as a metaphor for character development. Maybe the strength of the film lies within Casey Newton and Frank Walker and the creative spark they represent.
There is evidence of this in the progression of Clooney’s character. As a young boy, struggling to fix a jet pack so he can fly to outer space, his father scoffs at him. “I’m not giving up,” young Frank says. A similar scene reveals Casey’s positive outlook. “There are two wolves fighting,” she says. “One is darkness and despair. The other is light and hope. Which one wins?” The answer, “The one you feed.” The themes of happiness conquering depression run rampant through Bird’s other works (Mr. Incredible reliving the Glory days, Hogarth’s mother struggling to make ends meet), and it is this same meta-modernistic idealism that give the film its beauty. A simple theme, yes, one that film critics and teenagers will loathe, but nonetheless one our world very much needs. Also, don’t forget it’s a Disney film, so why wouldn’t the message be simple and optimistic?
Everything else about the film is slick and glorious. The score by Michael Giacchino is marvelous, eliciting similar excitement to that of John Williams’s E.T. composition. The cinematography is vast and impressive, notably in the scene where Casey immerses herself in the world for seven minutes. The color palette and production design are also neatly constructed, bringing true life and form to what some may have imagined when first building Disney’s magical land. It’s a film that looks and feels as good as it preaches, and while the plot may be a defining hindrance to some viewers, rest assured, this film’s love and life evoke feelings one might only experience in Disneyland.