Tomorrowland

*** out of ****

Tomorrowland is quite good, but selfishly, it isn’t what I want it to be. It’s like a reversed version of Close Encounters, where you see all the amazing things at the beginning, but spend the rest of the movie following characters trying to find them again.

It follows a high school girl (Britt Robertson), who after receiving a vision of an ideal human civilization, sets out on a quest to find where it came from. She is soon pursued by dangerous agents but finds help from a mysterious little girl (Raffey Cassidy) and a grumpy old inventor (George Clooney) who are deeply connected with the futuristic world.

The film hits on disturbing truths about our world today, and has an antagonist with a worldview, which should feel like a sharp attack on the older members of the audience, but the film’s message is so broad, it’s only likely to work with the kids audience, the movie wants. It’s a thinking-kid’s family movie.

The film’s co-writer, Damon Lindelof, still has a television writer’s gift for improvising mystery without a plan – but this is a characteristic that I don’t find acceptable in the world of movie writing. Brad Bird is still an awe-inspiring director with a rare gift for providing exciting spectacle, which stands apart from other mega-budget movies today.