The nostalgia-fueled Tomorrowland feels like an oddity. What business does an original intellectual property have being released on Memorial Day weekend? George Clooney stars as Frank Walker, an aged boy genius who must team up with a brilliant teen (Britt Robertson) to save our dying planet from us and a utopia headed by House (Hugh Laurie seems to enjoy his dastardly turn).
The movie’s abundant creativity is fed by the same Spielbergian cinematic dreams that energized J.J. Abrams’ Super 8. Tomorrowland’s brain trust, The Incredibles director Brad Bird and “Lost”’s Damon Lindelof, jam in as many references and nods to the grand sci-fi past as possible in 130 minutes, which never feels too long.
Clooney is grouchily charming, and Robertson handles her hefty screen time like a pro, though 12-year-old Raffey Cassidy might be the movie’s most charming find.
Despite its PG rating, Tomorrowland feels a bit violent (another callback to the pre-PG-13 family films of the ’80s?) and puffed up with a teensy bit of self-importance; just wait until the nation’s conservative pundits get a load of this politically minded Clooney vehicle. The amount of fun totally makes up for its more blowhardy moments. Still, no Space Mountain sequence?
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