Tomorrowland 2015
This movie didn’t get great reviews when it came out and it seemed oriented towards a younger audienc. But it was directed by Brad Bird who has done some really good work for Pixar, with some help from Damon Lindeloff who made Lost, and it stars George Clooney who is generally really good, so it seemed like it would be worth trying out. I recorded it from TV and watched the first fifteen minutes or so. It was good, but I didn’t have time to watch the whole thing. But I did come back to it pretty quickly and, while there are aspects of the movie that make it seem like a Disney Channel production, there is also a lot of stuff I really like, reminding me of books like A Wrinkle in Time or The Phantom Tollbooth. Basically it’s like a movie based on a book that smart kids read. I read those kinds of books when I was a kid, so I like it. There are some good, if kind of simple, lessons. The movie is packaged well as it takes a little while to figure out what is going on, starting at a World’s Fair in 1964 and then jumping to the present day, plus some glimpses of Tomorrowland. It’s a little bumpy, but overall it is a very positive movie that I enjoyed.
Update: I bought a digital code for this movie from RedBox a few months after watching it the first time and watched the movie again. Once you know the characters and you know what is going on, I think the movie actually works a little better. It is very fast paced with a lot of different different sequences like Raiders of the Lost Ark or maybe like an animated movie (the director, Brad Bird, directed Iron Giant and The Incredibles). The payoff is maybe a little too naïve in its simplicity, but I don’t mind that in a movie targeted towards kids. Not everything works and sometimes the effects look a little cheap, but for the most part I feel like this movie is better than the critics gave it credit for. The extras that come on the DVD (and with the digital copy) are worth watching for some deleted scenes and alternate scenes that were edited out to keep the movie moving quickly.
Written: 22 Jul 2017
Owned on: Blu-ray, DVD, Digital