(spoilers ahead)
by: Cassandra Raposo
The reviews are in for Brad Bird's Tomorrowland, Disney's film about a hopeful, young girl who discovers a futuristic world, and it seems that it was very hit or miss with most critics. Some are hailing it for its ingenuity and others are damning it for its preach-y narrative. But here's what I, a college girl entering adulthood, thought of the sci-fi adventure film.
Firstly, I think a lot of the critics had a certain expectation for the film, one that was most likely due to the trailers. The initial trailers boast a movie about Casey Newton (Britt Robertson), a teenage girl who stumbles upon a thriving future just by touching an odd pin and enlists the help of a cranky, old man named Frank Walker (George Clooney) to get her there. However, there is much more to the story that the trailers do not show. Trailers aren't meant to give away the entire plot of the movie, but I do feel that these trailers exuded a certain aesthetic that was mostly absent from the movie.
As I was sitting in the theater, thinking of the movie I was about to see, I was imagining utopia, incredible new technology, and a world “where nothing is impossible.” But only about 10 minutes of the movie satisfied that fantasy. They were, however, the most visually stunning 10 minutes; they reflected the future that we have all dreamed of, and watching Casey experience it for the first time was every bit as exciting as the trailers promised. However, Casey soon learns that the titular world is not our future, but another dimension, and that our actual future is in danger. War, environmental damage, and other man-made problems threaten our future, but Casey and others like her hold the key to saving it.
Enter Frank, who we first meet as a young inventor in the 60s, as curious and clever as Casey is in present day. Perhaps that is why he helps her; he recognizes the innocent optimism in her as something he once possessed. It is never played as naiveté, but as an overwhelming force of good that is the key to our survival and growth. It is demonstrated when Casey is in class, learning about the very real, very possible bleak future ahead of us and asks her teacher, “How can we fix it?” Her befuddled teacher can answer any question about death and destruction, but not one about how to stop it from happening. It's not hard to see what the film is trying to do here – it's a fictional film, set in a fictional world, which is facing the same problems that we are facing in reality. Casey represents a new generation of “dreamers,” as the film likes to call them. They are people with some of the greatest minds and the greatest ideas that could change the world. Frank was once a dreamer, but he lost that spark as he got older. Casey, in getting him to believe in her, restored his faith in a better future.
Ah, but who is responsible for bringing Casey and Frank together? Possibly the biggest surprise the film had to offer – Athena (Raffey Cassidy). She is a robot built by the officials of Tomorrowland, programmed to find dreamers and give them a pin just like the one that brought Casey into this adventure. Despite her metal skeleton and computer programming, she is one of the most human characters in the film. The people who programmed her discontinued her program, yet she kept looking for dreamers because she believed that they could change the world. She is also incredibly bad-ass; at one point we see her get run over by Casey and then get up and super-speed run to Casey's truck. But not only is it fun to see a little girl fight like Bruce Lee, it is refreshing to see a robot act more human than most humans, both in this movie and in real life.
All in all, the movie was not perfect. It did not match the trailers. It certainly was not the best Brad Bird film, who has directed The Incredibles (2004), Ratatouille (2007), and my personal childhood favorite, The Iron Giant (1999). As many of the critics of this movie pointed out, the storytelling could have been better. But now I give you two reasons to enjoy this movie: the amazing visuals and the message. I was blown away by the scenes that took place in Tomorrowland, the dimension. They were colorful, vivid, exciting, and out-of-this-world beautiful. Even the scenes that showed examples of a dark future, like the image of Casey's Florida home under water, were stunning. I was even more blown away by the end of the film, when the message really hits home. Casey and Frank are ready to recruit more dreamers, so they program more child-robots and arm them with more pins and send them off to our dimension. The last scene, in which various people from all walks of life appear in the fields of Tomorrowland, is nothing short of inspiring. If I were a kid watching this in the theater, I would want to be a dreamer. I would dream. Even as I'm about to turn twenty years old, I want to dream. And isn't that what the world needs? The ability to dream?
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