Review of Tomorrowland (2015) by Brandon M — 07 Oct 2015

Basic: From the opening of the film, we see Frank Walker (played by George Clooney) is telling his story from his childhood life. In his childhood life, young Frank Walker (played by Thomas Robinson) arrives to this theme park around 1964, of where he goes inside of the Hall of Invention to win some money, and his invention that he brought with him is a jetpack. David Nix (played by Hugh Laurie), who runs the Hall of Invention doesn't at all see any potential from young Frank, but Athena (played by Raffery Cassidy), the android girl who has crush on him, on the other hand, sees potential out of him. Then, very soon in the film, he winds up in Tomorrowland, and that's all I want to say about that part of the story.

Then, the film's narrative shifts to Casey Newton (played by Britt Robertson), a bright, optimistic girl, who has a curiosity of science, lives with her NASA engineer father, Eddie (played by Tim McGraw) and her little brother, Nate (played by Pierce Gagnon). She finds this pin, that once she touches it; it takes her to this place called Tomorrowland. Suddenly, the place she saw, when she touches the pin is gone. She then goes to Frank, who's now old, and all grizzly, and she wants him to take her to Tomorrowland, and now, the two paired up together, by going to Tomorrowland, and to unearth its secrets.

What's the deal: Tomorrowland was the one movie that I really wanted to see out of all these other summer movies in 2015. Because of two main reasons: It's directed by Brad Bird, and the teaser trailer left me breathtaking. Brad Bird has always been one of the best filmmakers out there, and he's also one filmmaker that never makes a disappointed film in his entire career. If you look at The Iron Giant, it actually drew my attention to both the characters and the story. The Incredibles: Best Pixar movie in my opinion. Ratatouille: Not only one of the greatest Pixar movie that I've seen, but also another great film by Brad Bird. Then, he made Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, which it's actually his first film live-action movie, and I thought it was the best Mission impossible movies out of the series. As for this movie, I certainly believe that this is his least film that he has ever done. Well, I honestly like the film, but I really think that it should've been better, and while it does have some of the same excitement that I had with Super 8, it also doesn't have the same greatness that I had with Super 8, either.

I would like to start off with all the things that I was actually quite impressed with the film. The visuals in this movie are really dazzling. The setting of Tomorrowland, of where you see big buildings, rockets, spaceships, and people with jetpacks, is really fascinating to look at, even if it does look very similar to "Meet the Robinson". I thought the score by Michael Giacchino, who's one of my favorite composers, was emotionally breathtaking. He also does have this cameo in the film, of where he plays the ride operator. I think that all of the performances in the film do a great job of what they're given, but the one performance, who I thought was the best one out of the whole cast is Raffery Cassidy. She really does bring a lot of excitement and a lot of delightfulness to the big screen. There's also a shot of the film of where Thomas Robinson is flying around with his jetpack, and while you're looking closer to his helmet, and the goggles, that he's wearing, you could really see that he looks like a live-action version of Hogarth, the main boy character from The Iron Giant.

Now here are the issues that I have with this film. A lot of people, who saw this movie, said that the biggest complain they had with the film is the narrative. What I can say about the film's narrative is that it is a little too uneven, it is all over the place, and it does bother me, sometime, when the film's narrative shifts from one thing to another, but for a moment, I actually got over it. James Berardinelli from Reelviews made a comment to this film, and I totally agree with this comment that he posted to the film. His comment was, "For a while, it doesn't matter that the plot meanders. The story seems like a jigsaw puzzle inviting us to solve it. That's the fun part. However, when the resolution is presented, it underwhelms." The third act of the film is the biggest disappointment, for me, and there's like at least three issues that I had with it. Spoiler alert to explain my issues. (1) There's a scene of where Hugh Laurie is giving a speech about the world on how it's spending more time on technology rather than doing something inspiring. I'm not saying it's a bad speech, but the way he explained it feels complicated, to me. (2) The moment of where we get to Athena's death, I was absolutely unsatisfied with it. (3) The execution, again, another thing that leaves me unsatisfied.

Another big issue that I had with this film was that it just wasn't enough, for me. I really wanted more from the story and the characters, but the movie never quite adds enough details to both of these things, and there are a lot of unanswered questions to this film. The characters that I wanted to learn more from this movie were Athena and Frank Walker. There are also a number of times of where the film changes the tone. Like the film starts out as a children movie, then it changes it from being an action packed movie, when it's going big on special effects, and then it ends as a children movie. I'm not saying it's a big issue for me, but it may yet be a big issue to others.

The truth was I wanted this movie to be the best summer movie, since Super 8. I know a lot of people were turn off with Super 8, by the fact that it was borrowing other Steven Spielberg's movies, and an ending, that is completely disappointing. Well, I wasn't. I wasn't because I felt satisfied for almost everything with this movie, and despite an ending that evoke my memories to other movie endings quite like this one, I thought the characters, the drama, the excitement, and the humor were all in the right places. But, Tomorrowland is not like Super 8, and the reason why it isn't is that the drama in this film is not at all as satisfied as the drama in Super 8, and I find the ending way more disappointed than the ending of Super 8. It can be exciting most of the time and the characters may be likeable, but those things are not enough to make up with the issues that I have with this film. It is a film that it's ambitious, and full of ideas, and I can totally see what the message of this movie is. It is after all about saving humanity, but quite frankly, I never at all think that the movie succeeds as it wants it to be.

My full opinion: It really does hurt for me not really liking this movie. I did say I liked it, but at the same time, I felt disappointed with it, and I would've feel much better if I really like it. It really does leave me debating myself, rather than frustrating myself, and I really do hope that Brad Bird would make another adventure movie, but in a much better way, or maybe he should get back into making more animation films, which he's already working on a sequel to The Incredibles. 6.3/10.