Movie review 'Tomorrowland': It's like an amusement park ride -- thrilling, gimmicky, but leading nowhere

Cast: George Clooney, Hugh Laurie, Britt Robertson, Rafey Cassidy
Director: Brad Bird
Rating: Two-and-a-half stars

Towards the end of his lifetime, Walt Disney became interested in developing a very special project — one that was very close to his heart. It was called “EPCOT” — “Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow”. He wanted to create a planned city which would serve as a model for “the community of the future”. It was meant to make American firms think up (and put into practise) new ideas for urban living. Disney bought several acres of land near Orlando, Florida, but after his death in 1966, the plan for his model city was abandoned. In its place, what was started in 1971 was the Walt Disney World Resort. Today, Walt Disney’s concept can be seen in the EPCOT theme park at the Resort and some parts of the original architectural model are still on display — a throwback to a grand vision that didn’t come to pass.

The new Disney film Tomorrowland bears several resemblances to the dream of Walt Disney himself. It begins in 1964 with a young boy called Frank Walker (Thomas Robinson, with his older avatar played by George Clooney) who has invented a jetpack and heads to a World Fair, where he meets a father-daughter pair called Nix and Athena (Hugh Laurie and Rafey Cassidy). Little Frank is smitten with Athena, who mysteriously tells him that she is “the future”, then hands him a badge pin and flits away. When Frank follows her and Nix, the badge transports him to a world many light years into the future, in another dimension, simply called “Tomorrowland”. It’s supposed to be the perfect world, one where dreamers are welcome, and where the best minds from Earth can create whatever they want. It’s wondrous in every possible way.

Years later, an embittered and much older Frank, who has returned to the dimension we all inhabit, is approached for help by a teen called Casey (Britt Robertson): She received a pin too, from Athena, which briefly showed her a glimpse of Tomorrowland, and she now desperately wants to go there. There are also a few complications (the world that we know is about to be destroyed, some robotic assassins are on their trail) that make it necessary that the trio — Frank, Athena and Casey — travel to Tomorrowland, and find a solution. As they make their way there, there are plenty of marvelous moments that are sure to fill you with a sense of wonder and delight.

Unfortunately, those moments are just that — individual moments that do not translate into a marvelous full-fledged film.

Much like Disney’s EPCOT never came to fruition in the way that it was meant to (and you’ll have to see the movie to find out if, as a world, Tomorrowland is a success), the film too doesn’t quite become what it’s meant to be. It has some interesting ideas — for instance, why we conceive the future of the world in mostly dystopian ways (pick up any book, like Orwell’s 1984 or young adult fare like the Divergent series/Hunger Games or comic book series/TV shows like The Walking Dead). Or an alernate theory about the origins of the Eiffel Tower. But rather than a wonderful sci-fi exploration of the possibility of a world in another dimension, it ends up being rather like an amusement park ride — gimmicky, and leading nowhere.

Yes, a movie that touches on a subject like this would require a suspension of disbelief, but there must be enough of a basis in fact — and a certain amount of consistency — for the audience to feel, “Yes, maybe it is possible”. Tomorrowland, however, is so sketchy (you’ll be left with several unanswered questions and loose plot threads at the end) that you can’t make that leap of faith.

The script of Tomorrowland (penned by director Brad Bird, and Damon Lindelof) is said to have been inspired by Walt Disney’s EPCOT plans. Perhaps it is oddly fitting then, that it is as incomplete a work (and as incomplete an experience for the viewer) as Disney’s dream for EPCOT itself turned out to be.