WATCH: Live film review: George Clooney's Tomorrowland is fatally old-fashioned
TOMORROWLAND: A WORLD BEYOND starring George Clooney should have everything going for it, says Express Online Arts Editor Stefan Kyriazis. So, why is it such a big disappointment?
Tomorrowland - Film Review DE
I had such high hopes for this film.
Created by Disney, directed by the wonderful Brad Bird (The Iron Giant, The Incredible) and fronted by the wondrously fronted and backed Mr. Clooney, it promised to be an absolute delight.
And yet, a tale of never losing hope and believing in the best in ourselves somehow turned out turgid and unexpectedly boring.
What went wrong?
WATCH OUR LIVE REVIEW NEXT
SCROLL; DOWN TO READ THE REVIEW IN FULL
George Clooney in Tomorrowland
REVIEW: TOMORROWLAND: A WORLD BEYOND
STARRING: George Clooney, Britt Robertson, Raffey Cassidy, Hugh Laurie
At the London press conference to promote Tomorrowland, Clooney told us that a film should always entertain first. If it leaves you wondering about the themes afterwards, then that’s simply a bonus.
Well, this film falls flat on both fronts.
The film opens with a clock counting down 58 days and it almost felt like I had been in the cinema for 58 days by the end.
The film potters along at a glacial pace. We get a few spectacular glimpses of the fabled Tomorrowland itself, but it takes us almost an hour and a half to actually get back there.
Director Brad Bird brought us the brilliant and snappily smart The Incredibles, so he knows how to make perfect family films that all ages will enjoy. This isn’t one of them.
Clooney is convincingly crabby as the madcap inventor, but purposefully bitter and twisted so that the film ends up squandering his much-needed charm.
Hugh Laurie in Tomorrowland
The blockbuster is based on Walt Disney’s own ideas of an ideal futuristic world, which, in turn, became a theme park. Critically for a film called Tomorrowland, it all feels rather old-fashioned.
There is a vague plot about a team of perky robot children recruiting the world’s geniuses and dreamers to build a better tomorrow. There’s even a rocket launching from the Eiffel Tower and a bathtub flying out the top of a house.
It’s all desperate to feel like a classic 1980s Spielberg film, filled with chil-like wonder. The technicolour special-effects and goofy characters should be charming, but that magical essential sense of wonder is somehow missing.
Tomorrowland
Besides, the world is endlessly ending and there’s lots of serious talk about the damage we are doing to the planet.
Britt Robertson as the girl who wants to change the world is fun and feisty and a bit like a Jennifer Lawrence-lite while Hugh Laurie’s wicked scientist is as grumpy and growly as his alter-ego on House.
Yet again, we have another disappointing villain with a world-weary conviction that humanity deserves what it gets. He may be right, but it doesn’t make for great cinema.
Raffey Cassidy in Tomorrowland
Newcomer Raffey Cassidy, however, is beguiling as the mysterious child Athena. There is real pathos to her story, even if the unrequited love subplot between her and Clooney feel slightly awkward by the end.
Kids will snooze off during the endless references to philosophy, global warming, war, politics, greed and self-interest. Adults may well agree with much of it, but instead of its intended mission to inspire us to be better, it actually ends up making us feel guilty and resentful.
The film is too long, too worthy and, crucially, just not entertaining enough.
After the screening I overheard the chap next to me muttering, “I just wanted the world to hurry up and end!”
Somehow I doubt this is what the film-makers were going for.
Tomorrowland: A World Beyond is out now in cinemas
TRAILER