Utopia in another dimension

This Disney movie starts with Frank Walker (George Clooney) holding a speech which is interrupted by a girl’s voice. This opening scene becomes a bit annoying because it is so slow for me. Anyway, after these first minutes the movie gets more and more interesting.

The story
Casey Newton (Brit Robertson) is a very clever and brave girl. She tries her best to prevent The Cape Canaveral of being closed. This act is due to her father’s job there which is at stake and her own ambition to be an astronaut. One evening Casey gets caught by the police. Upon her release she picks up her belongings. One pin with a letter T on it, is among them. Once she touches it, she is in another world.

Fascinated but also curious about this, she tries to explain it to her father. Of course he doesn’t believe her. Then Casey finds it out herself. By touching the pin, it brings her to a world in another dimension, Tomorrowland.

From the day Casey receives the pin, a girl named Athena acts like her chaperone. Athena (Raffey Cassidy) has answers about the pin. Answers Casey wants to explore. It brings her to Frank Walker. Frank is a grumpy old man. As a kid he got the same pin and traveled to Tomorrowland. Tomorrowland is a place on the same earth but in another dimension. Creative people; scientists, artists and other creative professionals build this utopian world. The technology is way far more advanced than in the world Casey lives in.

However this stunning Tomorrowland sends signal to the current world that it will end. It is now Casey’ s and Frank’s task to prevent the doomsday. I won’ t write any spoilers so I end the story here.

My review
First of all, this movie is marketed in The Netherlands and Belgium as Project T due to name’s copyrights. There is a summer festival called Tomorrowland in Belgium. To avoid confusion the movie is called Project T in these two countries.

This Disney movie with mega budget USD 200 million is very entertaining. The visual of Tomorrowland is stunning, my compliments to the CGI department. The sight of Tomorrowland’s silhouette reminds me of Cinderella’s castle from a far. It is futuristic and beyond imagination. I always admire it when people are able to translate their imagination in images, words and sounds. In the movie, the leader of Tomorrowland Governor Nix (Hugh Laurie) tells Frank that Tomorrowland is built by creative people without restriction of rules from the politics and surely without greed. This sounds as utopia.

 

Although this movie is rated as PG, I find the theme quite heavy for a Disney film. I mean; in the story in the current dimension the world is coming to an end because of how people treat the planet earth. Overexploitation driven by greed, wars fighting over access to clean water, obesity vs famine. Why does governor Nix from Tomorrowland plan to destroy the world? Would he like to start over again? Why doesn’t he heal the world? Perhaps I must have missed that part. Furthermore, the story seems unfinished or uncompleted. I mean I have a few questions about: Why was Frank deported to the current dimension? Why is Tomorrowland abandoned, what happened? Where did all the people go?

Move along to the cast now. The actors and actresses perform well. After Monument’s Men George Clooney doesn’t play a heart throb role anymore. Here in Tomorrowland he is a grumpy old man. He performs well. Two young ladies drag this movie along. Britt Cassidy convinces me as a badass whizz teen Casey and Raffey Cassidy is excellent as Athena.

I watched this movie with my daughter G yesterday. She finds this a cool, entertaining movie as do I. You get what you can expect from a Disney movie. Tomorrowland is a feast for your eyes. As G said afterwards: just enjoy it, do not over think or imagine that maybe, maybe there is a Tomorrowland in another dimension now.

Project T/Tomorrowland earns a 7 from me.