Yes, my feeling was “Hooray! a Brad Bird movie! and the screenwriter is…Oh. Oh crap.”
How does Lindelof still get work? Did Shyamalan email him whatever compromising photos of studio heads he has?
So I saw it last night against my better judgement. And it was pretty terrible. The story is mess, the cg was distracting, the characters weren’t compelling (mostly), and the whole thing was a lot more childish than I was expecting.
The best thing I can say is the overall idea is decent, but executed horribly
I saw it and liked it. I’m sick to death of super heroes, reboots and sequels. I’ll enjoy pretty much ANYTHING that is competently made and a novel idea. This film is not a game changer but it was a refreshing change all the same. The fact that it has two strong female characters in lead roles is big plus. Go see it.
Just got back from seeing it. Has a very anti-Rand theme to it at one point. The main point of the movie, which is spoiled in the trailors, is that the pin gives the bearer a glimpse at the future world, is selectively or was supposed to be selectively seeded to certain individuals. I think this was the point of the movie, in terms of audience viewing.
In a few years, I think it will end up getting more sympathetic reviews, regardless of the numbers that its pulling now.
Plus it had a star wars trailer.
Declan
I know they are not film critics but my 13 and 15 year old daughters loved it. I’m pretty sure they are the target audience. I enjoyed it too.
Yeah I really don’t get all the adults reaction to this movie. It’s not for us. I didn’t have a problem with it. I’m not saying it’s an Oscar winner, but it was better than a lot of what my 9 year old daughter drags me to to see.
The more I think about it, the more I like it because of it’s uniqueness. Kids movies like this don’t come out every day. It wasn’t a fairy tale, it wasn’t a comic book/superhero movie, it wasn’t animated. It’s a kid’s sci-fi/action movie and most of those are stupid like Spy Kids or Journey 2.
Saw it, give it 3 stars. For what it is it was fairly well done.
Doesn’t matter who it’s for–that doesn’t make me like it any more.
With that said, the initial trailer did not suggest the goofy kid-action flick that we ended up with. I purposefully avoided the trailers since as I prefer seeing a movie knowing as little as possible. Usually works out for me, but clearly not this time.
If I had realized before going in that it is a PG movie it would have helped set expectations for the age level it is targeted at.
Though that just makes me more surprised for the on screen murders of four innocent bystanders.
I’ve seen it.
It is the most spectacular after school special ever!
I enjoyed the actors but the story is so paper thin. Of course it is an Ayn Rand novel complete with the very late long monologue. Tomorrowland is a place where only the ‘exceptional people’ go and non-exceptional people make it bad.
but the young girl has ‘hope’ and that saves the day!!! ugh
I didn’t see any reviews before I went to the movie. Fandango user’s reviews had it at 4 stars, and that sounded pretty good to me. When we were sitting in the theater before the movie, they were playing the kids version of the pre-movie show. I then looked it up and realized it was a PG (not even PG13) movie, so that set my expectations a little bit more realistically.
After all that, I enjoyed the movie. I thought the story (despite a few holes) was pretty interesting and was a fresh idea. I found the acting believable, and I enjoyed the action. I also was happy with the moral of the story. I think this was a fine movie for the age it was made for. And my tween inside thought it was great. 
J.
I’ll see just about anything Brad Bird does (The Incredibles is still my favorite Pixar film, and quite possibly my favorite superhero movie, ever), but the Lindelof connection and mixed early reviews do give me pause.
Saw it. Good not great. Two big questions for me (due to bad writing I suppose) that may be spoilers.
Is Casey actually needed in the plot or is she just a MacGuffin?
Is Gov. Nix bad or just that his plan is different than the protagonist and it happens to be the wrong plan?
Tenthed or twentiethed on the “Saw it, didn’t hate it, didn’t love it” reaction.
Good performances from Clooney and Laurie, as usual, and the little girl whats-her-name was excellent, and I liked the initial device of “Tomorrowland immersion” by touching the pin. But the plot soon went so all over the shop that just I stopped caring.
Okay, road trip to Texas. Whoops, over to upstate NY via stolen pickup truck. Aren’t those clothes feeling a little un-fresh by this time? Oh never mind, here’s a mini-wax museum of 19th-century scientists. Ah, here comes the time travel! Wait, so where are we now? When are we now? That was an awfully quick and easy solution to the imminent doom of all humanity, wasn’t it? Oh, I guess things are better now? Okay, have fun y’all, bye.
I will say that it was extremely refreshing to have the stock character of the Random-Average-Seeming-Kid-On-Whom-The-Fate-Of-The-Universe-Actually-Depends as a non-sexualized teenage girl. No bikinis or ballgowns or boyfriends, just a kid in a strange situation who happens to be a girl, just like the flashbacks to young Frank show a kid in a strange situation who happens to be a boy (indeed, one might argue that young Frank’s character is actually more sexualized than Casey’s, because of the him-and-Athena thing). But it takes more than just showing a female character as a normal person to make a good movie.
My take on it, precisely. I really liked the idea of the film: let’s get back to the idea of the future being a better place, and away from this obsession with dystopia. But the script spent too much time meandering around, blowing shit up.
As a Disney (park) fan, I liked the parallel between the theme of the movie and the theme of the park. Tomorrowland – the Disney attraction – was very much an extension of the 1964 World’s Fair: many of the attractions were picked up from New York and dropped in Anaheim (Small World, People Mover, and the Carousel of Progress, whose theme song was heard in the opening moments of the movie). The fair and the park both exemplified that vision of the future as bright and shiny and wonderful. Disney has since redesigned Tomorrowland, to make it more retro/Jules Verne/steampunk, which is kind of sad.
It was something different for the Disney-family-movie genre, and my 6-yr old some was amazed by it. It’s not going to win any awards but I thought it was a fairly enjoyable summer flick myself, and I’m a sucker for the whole Futurama style.
By happenstance, I just saw that Adam Savage (of Mythbuster fame) had interviewed Damon Lindelof, as part of a series of interviews that he’s doing, so I watched it. It’s a friendly interview, so there’s no clear answers as to why Lindelof’s scripts end up lame, but from what I could tell the recurring theme would seem to be that Lindelof is sort of the ultimate Yes Man. He’s willing to take just about anything that the director or producers give him and integrate it, without giving any thought to the implications. He says that this is necessary, to keep working in the business, but I’d venture to guess - from how often he brings up the topic of gleefully knuckling under to the demands of others - that he takes it to a new level.
Following on this, he says that he’s more of a fan of the big mysteries of life, so he’s more likely to focus on developing that topic than anything else. Consequently, you’ll end up with a fully developed mythos that goes behind Prometheus, but very little thought given to the stuff we actually spend most of the time on in the movie.
So basically, I’d venture to guess that he gets work because he’s great to work with (being a Yes Man and all) and he sells great, big concept ideas that sound good.
Unspoilering these because I think there’s already some spoilers in the thread and these seem comparatively tame to me.
She’s not at all a MacGuffin. It’s her “hope” that wakes up Frank from his hopelessness. She is the embodiment of the film’s entire message, that we shouldn’t just give up. I’m not arguing that the plot is all that great, but she is an integral part of it.
My take is that his original plan wasn’t bad: he wanted to show people the consequences of their inaction and hopefully spur them to change. But when that didn’t work, he essentially said screw them and left them to self-destruct. At that point, he turned “bad” because he could have done something to help or at least save some of them, and he did nothing.
Interesting, Sage Rat; thanks. (If asked to guess who would interview Lindelof, I never would have come up with Adam Savage!)
Ew, somehow I didn’t think of that. I was too busy being hit over the head by what I thought was the message – take better care of the world/environment now.
It was also disconcerting to see Britt Robertson, who so recently was an adult in the Nicholas Sparks movie, back to being a kid.
And I was in one of those theaters where they serve you food, so distractions abounded.