Tomorrowland (2015)

There is a spoiler or two here and there.

Despite the fact that Tomorrowland runs for two hours and ten minutes, there isn’t much going on that I would be able to grab on and discuss endlessly. I understand what the movie tries to achieve but all these elements like the futuristic world, a little robot girl, scary robots and George Clooney put together just doesn’t work. It doesn’t wow, it doesn’t thrill, it just is and considering the possibilities of futurism, Tomorrowland simply feels bland.

The movie revolves around Casey Newton (Britt Roberston), a girl with an optimistic outlook on life trying to keep her father’s job by doing some illegal stuff. The positive aspect of Tomorrowland is the fact that Casey is excited about things, excited about science and she genuinely seems to believe that there’s always good in people. There’s just not enough character building to amp up her appeal and she falls into the pile of story lines that are happening around her. That being said, Casey has to be probably my favorite Robertson’s performance because she came off less annoying than usual. Then again, it would be difficult to out annoy the robot vs. boy romance arc in the movie that would later become extremely uncomfortable.

That’s right, Tomorrowland went there and it sounds as crazy as it was to witness on screen. It felt unnecessary and not in complete harmony with the movie. On one hand, we had the topic of the human race gradually living towards its own destruction, on the other hand, we had the hopeful and idyllic Tomorrowland built by the smartest people in the world and then the possibility of a robot being able to love fully like a human. The fact that the movie tried to focus on so many aspects, ideas and concepts all at once, made it all messy and nothing really got enough focus to be entertaining. Besides, like I already pointed out, Tomorrowland could have done better without the whole robot-love situation which was simply weird and creepy.

Creepy things aside, there’s still something that stood out as a negative even more than the discomfort of a romance driven relationship. For me the biggest downfall was the fact that George Clooney’s character was bland, and Clooney should never be bland! The character wasn’t taken far enough, I would have loved to see him as more crazy, more out there, more everything. Instead, he was just there, taking them all from place A to B and it pains me to say that because I believe Clooney to be extremely charismatic and appealing. The same applies to Hugh Laurie’s villain who didn’t even feel like a villain. It was dull and Laurie surprisingly even felt non-threatening which is wrong considering he supposedly sent killer robots after a girl. I even felt sorry for him in the end and that’s not how villains are supposed to make you feel, right?

Setting aside the negatives, though I feel like I only mentioned a small portion of the whole bunch of elements I managed to dislike, Tomorrowland is by any means an okay kids movie. That’s what it is supposed to be and that’s what it excels at. Though I would find numerous things to fault, the bottom line is that the kids are probably going to like it, because they don’t care about character depth and story line logic as much as I do. Though, I do think showing them that robot vs. man affectionate possible love situation thing… just a tiny bit creepy. I also enjoyed the past-sequence the movie focused on, which granted, was the beginning of a very discomfortable side story, but on the other hand felt refreshing, cool and filled with adventure. Plus, the little boy who played young Clooney was cute as hell.

Overall, Tomorrowland looks alright but considering the CGI possibilities, it’s nothing special. The story is nothing special either, and if you haven’t noticed, I was completely underwhelmed. The idea of the world destroying itself because it’s constantly being fed with negativitiy as a separate concept is amazing! It’s just a little annoying that it was handled the way it was in Tomorrowland. On a plus side, I must admit Casey’s character was refreshing and it was empowering to have an intelligent girl in front of the pack. If anything, I’m glad Tomorrowland was almost like a girl-power movie with a crumpy old man helping them out because he knew about the Eiffel tower.