Tomorrowland (2015)

Tomorrowland has not had a very successful theatrical release, which is really too bad because we should have come trust its director Brad Bird by now. Bird specializes in making smarter then usual family films with lite philosophical lessons like The Incredibles, Ratatouille or The Iron Giant. Tomorrowland certainty fits into this type, but I recognize it would have been a hard film to market, from the previews one is not fully sure what its about, and even watching it the 'tomorrow' element in 'Tomorrowland' is bit ambiguously rendered. Like the Disneyland land from which the movie takes its name Tomorrowland is about that old school optimistic view of the future, a kind of retro-tomorrow seemingly out of place is our apocalypse drenched pop culture of today. In fact that is more or less explicitly the major theme of the film, that we need to recapture that old optimism and work towards making such a positive future happen, or else we run the risk of making our worst visions of tomorrow a self fulfilling prophecy. Ultimately the journey the films protagonist Casey Newton ( a peppy Britt Robertson) goes on is more engaging then the somewhat preachy conclusion it ultimately arrives at. Still its family friendly and fun though a little bit long, and its kind of neat seeing George Clooney in a film of this type, though I couldn't fully get a read on if he was truly enjoying himself or not. Tomorrowland is certainly different from your typical family film and a worthy effort. ***