Tomorrowland (7/10)

Another one of my most anticipated movies of the year, Tomorrowland has director Brad Bird attached to it and he was the strongest pull of this movie (not to mention my favourite actor George Clooney agreed to do the movie also because of Bird).

As expected, the visuals were stunning. We were promised a "tomorrow land" and we got it. A world that's filled with creativity and possibility, a future of endless inventions.

But alas, we didn't get enough of it. And please read on with this SPOILER alert, as I'd rather do this review without limiting myself.

Bird spent more time on the world we knew than on Tomorrowland, which was only uttered once in the entire movie for some reason. Our time there was brief, we could have had another segment there but that was not to be. And when we finally returned there, it was already not the same.

Let's start from the beginning. The introduction to Britt Robertson's character took way too long. Five minutes could have been easily cut from the storytelling to make the first part tighter.

And then after leaving Tomorrowland for the first time, it was a journey of discovery of the pin. And that's where Keegan Michael Key and Kathryn Hahn appeared. While funny as they were, their purpose of presence wasn't made clear. Were they just there searching for other pins or to track down Raffey Cassidy's character - whom by the way gave such a great performance. Just like Bird had said in an interview, she had that old soul look but yet she still had that sense of youthful wonderment intact.

When Clooney finally appeared, it was almost half way through the 130 running time. Not that Robertson couldn't carry the movie on her own, but I think because Clooney appeared in the very beginning, he kind of left a hole when he wasn't there in the first half. So when he appeared, he immediately gave another spark to the movie.

Speaking of spark, the action sequences were brilliant. From the store, to Clooney's home, to finding a spaceship, and then to the finale; everything was choreographed brilliantly and kept the adrenalin pumping. Bird can really do action in the Disney way and still keep the excitement level at its peak.

Also, his storytelling especially in this movie was really way up there. Weaving in the past and the present, the three main characters and between two worlds; you wouldn't realise how difficult it was until you sat down and thought about it, like what I'm doing now.

But towards the end, the motivation behind Hugh Laurie's character kind of fell apart. His monologue wasn't the easiest to follow, and was he trying to destroy the two worlds? And why? The ending fell short of what I had hoped it would be. There wasn't a strong revelation or explanation in the end that tied everything together.

For its running time, I thought it was too long. Bird was very ambitious with this movie that cracks started forming and some things fell through. But if he had made it simpler, would it have made the movie better or worse?

Overall, this was such an original movie, something that we seldom get. Though there were a faults, the enjoyable elements outweighed all the negativity.