After some great effort, I believe with this writing I’ll be caught up on Movie Reviews for flicks I’ve seen in the theaters. That’s pretty sad (though honestly par for the course) when you consider I only saw two films in the theater this summer. But I digress.
I saw Tomorrowland way back in June when G took a bunch of his friends to the movies for his birthday party. I’m not going to bother with a plot summary. If you want to read one, go check out IMDB or Wiki.
What I will say is this film was mildly entertaining. There were some good action sequences in here which I really wasn’t anticipating from a Disney film and the acting was top notch. That should come as no surprise and whether you like him or not, George Clooney, even when he’s in bad films, typically turns in a good performance. He elevated everyone around him, especially Britt Robertson who did an admirable job. Also a shout out to Raffey Caddisy for playing a robot and not coming off “robotic”.
Summer Flop?
With a budget of $190 million, the fact that this “only” brought in $208 million puts it squarely in failure territory… though I’m not sure that’s 100% fair. This article from Forbes REALLY seems to have a hard on for it:
This was supposed to be the great “original” hope of the 2015 summer movie season, with Walt Disney releasing a big-budget original fantasy from Brad Bird. Mr. Bird was coming off of the $694m-grossing Mission: Impossible Ghost Protocol and used his capital not to make a Star Wars sequel or Jurassic World, but rather an original idea from the back of his, and writer Damon Lindelof’s mind. But the film was hurt by a muted marketing campaign that promised glorious revelations and towering spectacle just behind the curtain, as well as kid-friendly thrills that would remind audiences of the all-ages fantasy adventures that were once a thing in a pre PG-13 tent pole era.
I suppose if Disney was looking for Tomorrowland to be the next park-changing movie franchise a la Pirates of the Caribbean then yes, this would be considered a failure. This certainly isn’t something that would require an update to the Tomorrowland section of Walt Disney World (which I’m sure they were hoping for). But it wasn’t terrible either.
Tomorrowland – Thoughts and Recommendation
I tend to judge summer movies on their “fun factor”. This one in particular I’m judging based on how well it managed to keep the attention of a bunch of 9 year olds (and a 7 year old). To that end, it was a mild success. The kids generally enjoyed themselves and weren’t bored though with a 130 minute running time this would benefit from some additional editing. I’m not going to say you should rush right out and see this one, but if you’re toward the bottom of your Netflix queue and you’re looking for a visually compelling film with a decent story give this one a shot. Pick up your copy in several formats on Amazon here.
Have you seen Tomorrowland? What did you think?
Update 11.12.2015
CinemaSins has released sins video titled Everything Wrong With Tomorrowland In 18 Minutes Or Less. It’s well worth watching. And spot on.
