Going into Tomorrowland, I wasn’t expecting to like it, given negative early reviews and a 49 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
But I also wondered if the negative buzz came from so much anticipation for Brad Bird’s new film, yet without much known about it, that perhaps critics and writers developed a preconceived idea of the movie in their minds. So when the actual product didn’t match up, Tomorrowland felt like a disappointment. Of course, that could be said about any movie and its critical reaction, to some extent.
Yet it was curious to me that the film critic hive mind was turning its collective thumb down here. Could Tomorrowland really be that bad? Talent in front of and behind the camera guarantees nothing, naturally, but Bird, George Clooney and writer Damon Lindelof seemed like a pretty good bet for a movie.
Right off the bat, Tomorrowland does take a stumble. Clooney’s Frank Walker addresses the audience directly (with some help from Britt Robertson’s Casey Newton, presumably the main character), telling us that the story is basically a flashback, leading up to this point.
Sure, plenty of movies use that kind of framing device and it works just fine. But this one feels unnecessary, almost as if it’s being used to hold together a story that may have fallen apart along the way. That’s not a good sign, but it’s also an assumption made before the rest of the movie progresses.
Once the story gets moving, however, Tomorrowland is a reminder of what it was like to be a kid, with imagination making anything seem possible. The future feels limitless, because you haven’t yet learned about what sorts of limits the world might place upon itself. That sentiment is at the heart of the movie, with Walker (played as a boy by Thomas Robinson, who really could pass for Kid Clooney) embodying the idea that optimism and hard work can open up the world.
It can’t be an accident that Walker’s first invention is a jetpack, which has always been the signature innovation of the future. That’s the future we were promised, right? Someday, we would know what it feels like to fly. Is there any kid that doesn’t dream of such a concept? And the fact that we’re not all flying around in jetpacks right now is a little bit of a disappointment, a bitter spoonful of reality that lets us know that the future isn’t what we imagined and hoped it could be when we were very young.
During the sequence when Walker first discovers Tomorrowland and with that jetpack (unwittingly repaired by one of the city’s construction robots) flies around the futuristic landscape of towering structures of gleaming steel, cloudless skies and water the perfect shade of aqua, Bird’s film is at its best, capturing the spirit of being a child full of hope, optimism and the promise of a world that allows brilliance to be fulfilled.
What was it that people weren’t digging about this movie? So many writers and critics say that they’re tired of fantasy, sci-fi and comic book superhero stories taking on a dark sensibility, mucking around in the grim and gritty instead of embracing fun. Yet here’s a movie existing in that bright space, and many seem to be rejecting it. Is this a case of people saying they want a particular thing because it’s different from what they’re already seeing, but deep down, they really want more of the same because it’s familiar and comfortable?
Tomorrowland finished No. 1 at the weekend box office, but its estimated gross was viewed as a disappointment for a summer holiday blockbuster. We’ll see what happens when the movie opens overseas, however, with Clooney being an international superstar.
Speaking of Clooney, I thought he looked miscast when I first heard about Tomorrowland and then watched the first trailer. The mischievous charmer as a embittered recluse? Is George Clooney the first name that comes to mind when you hear the word “cranky”? And does he really come across as an overgrown manchild, someone who either never quite grew up or perhaps had to grow up faster than he should have?
Would Tom Hanks have been too easy a choice, calling back to his role in Big? Robert Downey Jr. has already done the troubled, genius inventor and tinkerer with Tony Stark. And he comes off as having far too much fun with life to opt for a life in seclusion. Harrison Ford is naturally grouchy, but probably too old for the time frame of this story.
I’m still not entirely convinced that Clooney was right for this role. But Robinson as Kid Frank helps sell the transition from wide-eyed hopeful to grizzled grump. Visually, the two actors are a compelling contrast, telling some of the story with a visual shortcut, rather than obvious exposition.
Interestingly, Hugh Laurie — who plays the story’s villain, David Nix — could actually have been a better choice, with his biting wit being a perfect delivery device for Walker’s bitterness, especially toward the unrequited love, Athena (Raffey Cassidy), who broke little Frank’s heart and crushed his hopeful, optimistic spirit. (I actually think Clooney does a good job of showing he still holds some affection, yet resentment over being spurned, toward a 12-year-old girl without coming off as creepy. I’m not sure Nicolas Cage or Joaquin Phoenix could have pulled that off, folks.)
Clooney may actually have been better as the charming face of the future who runs Tomorrowland. And wouldn’t being the misguided villain have been a more intriguing turn than attempting to play grumpy and bitter?
Is Tomorrowland a perfect movie? No, and its critical reaction, along with lackluster box office, are but two indications of that. As I mentioned earlier, someone along the line didn’t trust the story to play out naturally and thus inserted that framing device that probably would have worked better as an epilogue to the main narrative. But Bird and Lindelof do have trouble reaching the end, which is likely what made producers or the studio nervous.
Casey is supposed to be the main character and we’re supposed to believe that her positive thinking is the key to saving Tomorrowland, to ensuring the future. Yet that really doesn’t factor into the story’s ending at all. The most compelling storyline is the relationship between young Frank and Athena, but it’s used as a subplot to justify Walker’s turn into a bitter old man. This is a movie begging for a prequel to be made, and that’s probably the story that should have been told to begin with.
Maybe Bird saw it himself in the editing room: There are great ideas here, especially the concept that we’ve become far too enamored with the apocalypse and embracing of post-apocalyptic culture in our sci-fi and fantasy. A prevailing theme of Bird’s work — The Iron Giant, The Incredibles, Ratatouille — is that genius never receives its just due in our society, and if it’s not nurtured, it will die and take us down with it. But the execution of those ideas is flawed.
Actually, that sort of mirrors the Tomorrowland concept, but I doubt Bird intended the plot of his own film to serve as an allegory. But like the city of the future that wasn’t revealed to the general public, the concepts and spirit of this movie were withheld from potential audiences by vague trailers that really only showed scenes from the movie. I’m all in favor of keeping the good stuff for the movie itself, rather than reveal everything in the trailer.
But if Disney had let people know how fun this movie could be, how it will make you remember what it was like to be a kid, how it will remind you of how hopeful you felt as a child (which Interstellar attempted with its initial trailer, tapping into the wonder we once held for the space program), how it feels like a cartoon come to life (easy to say with Bird as the director), maybe Tomorrowland would have the audience — and acclaim — it deserves.