Tomorrowland is a Disney film sort-of based off their theme park in Disneyland. The film follows Casey Newton (Britt Robertson), a bright teenage girl who finds out about this wonderful futuristic land called Tomorrowland. She wants to go there and along the way, she meets Frank Walker (George Clooney) and Athena (Raffey Cassidy), people who may or may not help her get there.
Brad Bird is one visionary director that exceeds at creating lively worlds with fun characters for multi-layered stories that manage to be both thought-provoking and emotional. This film is not so far off from that. At its core, there is a lot of Brad Bird. The film has an ensemble of unique characters, who are played splendidly by their respective actors, and who play around in this wonderful world created by Bird. You can really feel Bird's stamp on the world-building, through the many nerdy-fun action sequences and this one beautiful, breath-taking tracking shot. Clearly, the visionary director who brought audiences the Burj Khalifa action sequence in Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol and the fantastic world of heroes in The Incredibles has not lost his touch.
However, a great cast and Bird's directing is probably the height of the film's positive attributes, because there's a glaring amount of Damon Lindelof influence that really brings the film down.
The film is too convoluted for its own good. They thinly stretched out a rather simple "get from point A to point B" story and the plot and the villain's motivation don't make any sense. The finale unveils the mystery, and reveals a poorly developed villain and stakes. Then just as it starts going, it ends. It felt like the film was cut off at the middle and wrapped up. It's pretty trademark Lindelof poor writing and underdevelopment.
I get what Bird was going for, and I feel like he was able to deliver an optimistic, hopeful sci-fi flick. The cast is stellar, and Bird still remains one of the more interesting and visionary directors working on blockbusters today. Just maybe you keep Lindelof away from the 190 million dollar blockbuster next time?
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