Review - Tomorrowland

Tomorrowland is a 2015, American sci-fi, mystery, adventure film, directed by Brad Bird and starring George Clooney, Britt Robertson, Hugh Laurie and Raffey Cassidy. 
Tomorrowland's advertising has remained very secretive with the plot of the film and i don't want to spoil it either so i will do a simple premise for the film taken from Disney:Bound by a shared destiny, a bright, optimistic teen bursting with scientific curiosity and a former boy-genius inventor jaded by disillusionment embark on a danger-filled mission to unearth the secrets of an enigmatic place somewhere in time and space that exists in their collective memory as "Tomorrowland". 

Knowing nothing about the film going in because of all the secrecy around the film i was really excited to see it, especially for Brad Bird who has turned into one of the great directors of this generation, with films under his belt such as; The Incredibles, Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol and The Iron Giant. The film has moments of genius but unfortunately it also is very messy, it's tonally all over the place and it has a message that it is trying to tell the audience, which is fine, but they beat you over the head with it, like the film thinks you're stupid.

Focusing on the positives the film looks beautiful, there are some truly amazing shots and set pieces in the film, my favourite being in a retro toy shop (with lots of Star Wars memorabilia to look for)

The action is filmed in a way in which you can always see whats going on and feel engaged in it, no annoying quick cuts or shaky cam, which is always a plus! 

The look of Tomorrowland (as in the place in the film) is incredible, it is a really nice vision of the future, and that is a nice thing to see in the film, they address this point a lot in the film but it is nice to see a vision of the future that is clean, and beautiful and hopeful, with lots of films set in the future these days it tends to be that the future looks like an apocalyptic wasteland (seen recently in Mad Max: Fury Road)
Its also a new sci-fi story which isn't a part of a franchise, which is nice to see, most sci-fi these days seems to be already based on an established franchise.  

The performances were all pristine in the film. George Clooney plays Frank Walker, Clooney showed a side to him i hadn't really seen before, that of the grumpy old man, he also had a really interesting relationship with a character which i will go into later. Britt Robertson's character Casey is a teenager who is optimistic about the future where it seems everyone else isn't, Britt played her part very well balancing a mix of humour and drama seamlessly, the most interesting character and performer in the film is Raffey Cassidy and her character Athena, a mysterious young girl who has had interactions before with Clooney's character, the newcomer had the best performance in the whole film and her character was so interesting, especially the backstory with her and Clooney which is very complicated.

Now on to the negatives...

Like i said earlier the tone keeps changing in the film and it is jarring, it goes from something serious happening to a moment filled with humour so quickly that it just doesn't work, keeping on the same point, from the trailers i thought the film was going to be a really complex sci-fi film, but it isn't, its a fun adventure film for children, the humour for the most part is directed at kids and the way the film talks to the audience regarding the moral of the story is that the audience is too dumb to understand the message so the characters just keep repeating the same point over and over again until they think we finally understand.

The plot is very messy in the film the whole third act taints the first two acts and gives you a very disappointing finale and a very confusing one regarding how everything is solved in the end, but what do you expect when the writer of the film is Damon Lindelof, the showrunner on Lost!

Finally the character of David Nix, played by Hugh Laurie, this character is hardly developed and doesn't really feel like a character at all which isn't Laurie's fault at all, he was a very weak antagonist in the film and really doesn't impact the story in anyway, the film would of been a lot more interesting with a big bad villain to hate in the film.

Tomorrowland is a very disappointing film, ironically because of the secrecy around the film everyone thought it was going to be this really interesting bit of science fiction which it has glimmers of and a ton of potential, but sadly in the end it's just a film that audiences will enjoy but won't impact them like the filmmakers would hope it would.

3/5

What did you think about the film? Comment and let me know!