The Good but Not Great Tomorrowland

Writer/director Brad Bird has had an auspicious career. He was a consultant for The Simpsons for eight years during that show’s creative zenith. From there he moved to the big screen where he wrote and directed 1999’s The Iron Giant, a beautifully hand-drawn Cold War story that’s an allegory about how we have the power to choose our own destiny. Then Bird joined the digital age and began working for Pixar where he was responsible for the fantastic one-two animated punch of The Incredibles in 2004 and Ratatouille in 2007. Having won two Best Animated Feature Oscars for those films, he then transitioned to live action directing Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol in 2011. While it’s not my favorite of that franchise, it did turn out to be not only the highest grossing Mission Impossible film ever but also the highest grossing Tom Cruise movie of all time.

With that kind of track record, Bird had a blank check for his next project. He could literally do anything he wanted. And naturally he chose what any red-blooded American would – jetpacks.

Bird’s latest film Tomorrowland begins at the 1964 World’s Fair. Boy genius Frank Walker has brought the jetpack he built from an Electrolux vacuum cleaner and spare parts to an invention competition. He meets scientist David Nix who is unimpressed as well as a mysterious girl named Athena who is impressed. She slips Frank a small lapel pin with the letter “T” on it. Frank follows Nix and Athena into Disney’s “It’s a Small World” ride and is soon transported to, you guessed it, Tomorrowland. I don’t mean the theme park in Disneyland, but rather a gleaming, futuristic city in an alternate dimension. We learn later that a kind of supergroup of geniuses – Thomas Edison, Jules Verne, Gustave Eiffel, and Nicolai Tesla --  discovered this alternate dimension and decided to create a place dedicated to creativity and scientific advancement free from politics and greed, a kind of genius utopia.

Fast forward to the 21^st century where we meet another young genius, this time a teenage girl named Casey Newton. She’s smart, hopelessly optimistic, and only a little obnoxiously precious. She also encounters Athena, who is still the same lovely 12 year old girl Frank Walker was crushing on in 1964. Spoiler alert: Athena is a robot programmed to seek out dreamers and visionaries. She found Frank Walker in the 60s and now she’s found Casey Newton. Athena brings Casey to Frank who is now bitter and utterly cynical having been exiled from Tomorrowland years before. We learn that Tomorrowland didn’t work out, that all the optimism and hope fizzled, AND that our own world is within days of ending in apocalyptic disaster.  Casey, Frank, and Athena have to battle the now inexplicably evil David Nix for the fate of the future.

For someone with Bird’s track record, should be a glorious, sweeping, nerd heartwarmer that sends you out of the theater uplifted and inspired. Unfortunately, the film is like young Frank’s early jetpack – cool and ingenious in some ways, but ultimately doesn’t achieve the heights it intends. It is as though the filmmakers were so interested in paying tribute to so many sci fi eras and inside jokes that they forgot that the climax needed to make sense and that questions needed to be answered. The film references steampunk, 50s and 60s gee-whiz rocketships and rayguns, 80s and 90s comic book nostalgia and a hundred other things that will make the nerd in your life squeal with joy. But it doesn’t really cohere into more than the sum of its parts. It’s good but not great.

The movie got a sluggish start at the box office considering the amount of marketing that led up to its release. It’s not a failure by any means, but sadly, this personal labor of love for Bird doesn’t measure up to the greatness of his earlier work.