MEMBER SIGN IN
Not a member? Become one today!
         iBerkshires     Berkshire Chamber     MCLA     City Statistics    
Search
'Tomorrowland': Mediocre Expectations
By Michael S. Goldberger, iBerkshires Film Critic
04:56PM / Saturday, May 30, 2015
Print | Email  


Popcorn Column
by Michael S. Goldberger  

Walt Disney Studios 
A pin offers a peak into a possible future for a selective group, but the reality isn't as wonderful as it should be.

Filmmaker Brad Bird's "Tomorrowland," although considerably high-minded, is a convoluted and rambling adventure-mystery bereft of truly enchanting vision and long on sermon. A Disney production, it also reminds of the Mouse's self-appointed role as keeper of our civilization. Average performances by talented actors doubtlessly hampered by stilted writing compound the disappointment. Yet the film's noble mission can't help but earn a modicum of our respect. Gee, even Nix, the chief villain played by Hugh Laurie, almost convinces us of his altruism.

Think time travel, of portals to here and there, a potentially doomed future if we don't wake up to how we're ruining the world in almost every imaginable way, and a duo of intrepid souls who think they just might be able to preserve our fates ... or at least give it the old college try. It's the sort of stuff you figure little Taylor and Brittany ought to know about, constructed in familiar video game style to make the moral maxims a bit more palatable to the juice box crowd.

out of 4

Oh, they've heard the lectures about recycling and, depending on what political party has sway in their school district, have been told either the verity or fallacy of global warming ever since Miss Karnovsky's kindergarten class. Except now here's a chance to experience it with Nana and Pop-Pop, who are always happy to accept assignment as babysitters/motion picture purveyors.

The older group will feel good about the humanitarian message being imparted to their descendants, while in turn the urchins enjoy seeing the oldsters get a kick out of their uncanny intellect and antics. Plus, there will be junk food, both in the theater and afterwards. Heck, the ancillary lesson in grownup hypocrisy is in itself apt preparation for adulthood.

But on the screen, there is little folderol and no mistaking the importance of what the protagonists find themselves trying to accomplish, the escapade beginning with a flashback to inventor/scientist Frank Walker's prodigious childhood. At the 1964 New York World's Fair, the wunderkind presents his homemade jetpack for judging in a competition presided over by an oddly negativistic official. In the process, he wins the attention of Athena (Raffey Cassidy), a girl about his age somehow or another related to the contest's dour overseer.

Flash forward and we meet the adult Frank Walker, a disillusioned genius skeptical of just about everything, played by a miscast George Clooney. Through a rather cumbersome miscalculation, the curmudgeonly expert of all things gizmo and gadget winds up vying for narrative duties with his younger counterpart, the bright-eyed and bushy-tailed Casey Newton, portrayed by Britt Robertson.

Each yammers about the circumstances leading to their eventual meeting and date with destiny, the terminology of which brims with hifalutin' techno garble, conjecture and allusion to dimensions heretofore never proven to exist ... not even by Einstein. In short, it's the future ... a time and place where Disney long ago planted its flag. Complementing their partnership as a sort of deus ex machina/mysteriously pixyish spirit is the aforementioned Athena. Our job is to guess who or what she really is.

To and fro the scenario goes, confounding the senses of those so-called realists who have no patience for such fantasy. But not so your humble auditor. I believe. However, the fashionista in me is just a bit curious as to why so many prognosticators feel we're destined to face the Brave New World without collars.

But no matter. Fact is we never do get a really good look at Tomorrowland, an amalgam of neo-Guggenheim Museum and postmodern "Flintstones," with design cues from the Sydney Opera House. It is a rather wispily imagined locale, dotted with zooming urban aircraft, swirling sky roadways and vague, unconvincing backdrops. The director makes surprisingly inefficient use of the CGI magic now available to filmmakers, suggesting a lack of truly creative vision and either a stingy or poorly managed budget.

Admittedly, always amenable to being blown away by a film's prescience, I belong to that jaded group of sci-fi fans forever searching the movie horizon for the contemporary equivalent of "2001: A Space Odyssey" (1968). It's a tall order, and puts succeeding movies in an unenviable position analogous to the love interest one meets when on the rebound. Nonetheless, summoning all reasonable objectivity, it's apparent that "Tomorrowland" tacitly justifies the obvious lack of breakthrough revelation by virtue of its vital though clumsily delivered message.

Indeed, partial dispensation is earned via the positive, albeit overacted, role model Robertson projects. She has identity, mission and chutzpah. Leading by example in teen idol fashion, her Casey Newton (as in Sir Isaac, get it, get it?) makes scientific pursuit and saving the world a rather hip thing to do. Thus, since the future belongs to youth, we can only hope that if our gal does rescue her "Tomorrowland," she also manages to makes it a more interesting place.

"Tomorrowland," rated PG, is a Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures's release directed by Brad Bird and stars George Clooney, Britt Robertson and Hugh Laurie. Running time: 130 minutes

0Comments
More Featured Stories
NorthAdams.com is owned and operated by: Boxcar Media 102 Main Sreet, North Adams, MA 01247 -- T. 413-663-3384
© 2011 Boxcar Media LLC - All rights reserved