Disney unloaded its new sci-fi adventure, Tomorrowland, in Spring 2015 and with a trailer that looked like it was a million miles beyond the here and now, it had a lot of promise. The brilliantly futuristic world at the heart of the film looks very cool, and it’s got the kind of kids adventure story concept that dreams are made of, but sadly it doesn’t quite live up to expectations with mixed reviews in general.
The initial trailer gave little away, other than a glancing sneak peak at the world of tomorrow that lies just outside of our reach, but the second trailer showed much more of what to expect. As a result anticipation for the movie had started to skyrocket ahead of the release, almost as fast as George Clooney’s bath-based space rocket.
The film’s title and high-tech sci-fi outlook is clearly inspired in some part by the themed land that is located at five of Disney’s massive parks around the world. However, the film comes across more like the massive magical mega-corporation flexing its cinematic might than trying to drum up business for its theme parks, so the connection is predominantly in name only.
Release date
The film made its way to the big screen towards the end of Spring 2015 with a US and UK release date of the 22nd May with screening in 2D, 3D and IMAX, with the latter two making the most of the importance of visual effects to the impact of the film. It has subsequently been confirmed for a digital download, Blu-ray and DVD release date of the 5th October 2015 in the UK.
Storyline
The plot for the Tomorrowland film is the story of a young teenage girl called Casey, who finds herself transported to a bizarre land whenever she touches a pin she’s left with. The bizarre situation, which you can get a better look at in the trailer below, leads her to the doorstep of a former child genius and mad-skills scientist called Frank, who has become reclusive and suspicious. When he finally lets her in they’re both fired off on an epic adventure to this Tomorrowland to try to fix the future.
There’s a little hint of the late, great Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter’s The Long Earth about the concept, but with more of a futuristic, outer space idea of parallel universes. With the discovery of the Higgs Boson recently and scientists moving on to other potential scientific breakthroughs, who knows whether or not they will both go on to be more science fact than science fiction.
Cast
The cast for the film is pretty tight with relative unknown on the big cinematic stage, Britt Robertson, taking on the role of Casey, which is no mean feat considering the fact that she’s actually 24-years-old in real life. She’s joined by the more familiar presence of George Clooney (The Monuments Men) as the crazed scientist, Frank, along with Hugh Laurie (Arthur Christmas), who plays a scientist and leader of Tomorrowland called David Nix.
Yet another young newcomer, thirteen-year-old Raffey Cassidy, plays Audio-Animatronic android Athena, and Tim McGraw (The Blind Side) plays Casey’s protective dad, Eddie Newton. Kathryn Hahn (The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty) and Keegan-Michael Key (Let’s Be Cops) put in short appearances as dangerous Audio-Animatronic robots Ursula and Hugo.
Production
In addition to having the full might of Disney behind it, the Tomorrowland film also had The Incredibles and The Iron Giant director, Brad Bird in the hot seat. He was also one half of the two man screenplay writing team alongside Damon Lindehoft (Star Trek: Into Darkness) and both of whom are producers for the movie with Jeffrey Chernov making up the final third.
John Walker, Brigham Taylor, Jeff Jensen and Bernard Bellew are the executive producers and Claudio Marianda, who’s previous work including the equally impressive looking Tron Legacy and Oblivion is the director of photography.
Review
While the first trailer didn’t have that much of an impact on our Spidey-senses, the second one, which you can see below, had sent them tingling like we’d just seen Doctor Octopus necking Mary Jane Watson… or something along those lines. Some of the effects looked epic and there’s a very nice whimsical quality to some of the high tech gadgetry that Frank has control over. The plot for the Tomorrowland is pretty interesting on the face of things, with Casey coming across as a pretty decent unexpected hero, but sadly the delivery doesn’t quite work out as well as we’d hoped. With Marianda, Bird and Lindhoft at the helm of the crazy parallel universe-fueled ship it should have been a blast, but unfortunately it never quite takes off. Read our full Tomorrowland (2015) review for more details.
