Tomorrowland or yesterday's TV special?

WOULD you like to visit Tomorrowland? It's a shiny metropolis of the future where every building looks like it's been co-designed by Frank Gehry and Zaha Hadid. Residents zoom around in jetpacks and swim in transparent multi-storied pools. Everyone dons chic minimalist outfits and looks genuinely happy.

But Tomorrowland harbours secrets - secrets that have dark implications for the world we live in now. And no one can get to the heart of these issues, let alone solve them, except present-world high school tech geek Casey (Britt Robertson).

Casey happens to have gotten a glimpse of this futuristic utopia when she touches a pin from the city. From here on, she is hooked. She is determined to find out who made these pins and how she can get to the city. The person who could supply the answers is Frank (George Clooney), a reclusive scientist with secrets of his own.

So far, so good. Tomorrowland, directed by Brad Bird (Ratatouille, The Incredibles), delivers spectacular glimpses of the future that makes the present world look glum and humdrum. In fact, this fantasy land looks little like the actual Tomorrowland theme park ride in Disneyland, on which this Disney-produced movie is based.

Trouble starts when Tomorrowland the film veers into concepts of dystopia, the idea that Tomorrowland the city has been built to distance itself from the intractable problems of today's world such as war, famine, terrorism, global warming and economic disparities, which are supposedly close to destroying Earth for good.

Disney, a name associated with children, cartoons and amusement parks, has almost nothing in common with dystopias - apart from sharing a homophonic first syllable.

THE BUSINESS TIMES INSIGHTS

Powering Asean's Future 2026

Find out how enterprises are navigating power constraints and sustainability targets

ACCESS THE INSIGHTS

Director Bird struggles to reconcile these two antithetical worlds - the bleak, brutal realities of today's world and the utopian fantasies of Disney. Just as Tomorrowland the city escapes all too conveniently from the real world, Tomorrowland the movie skims lightly over the issues it purports to raise.

Does the movie want us to think deeply about these issues, or does it want us to simply believe everything will be fine in the end, Disney-style?

The tone of the film shifts unexpectedly from dark to bright, hopeless to hopeful, harshly realistic to rosily idealistic. The message of the film is confusing, and Bird's co-screenwriter Damon Lindelof - famous for co-creating the equally convoluted TV show Lost - doesn't help things.

At times, the plot feels like that of a TV show, each episode ending with an incredible cliffhanger that finds quick and easy resolution in the next episode.

The best thing in the movie besides the special effects is, fortunately, the cast. Clooney is entirely believable as a grumpy, jaded, seen-it-all science nerd. He sheds his glamorous GQ image to anchor what is essentially a movie for kids with limited appeal for adults.

Robertson holds her own as Casey, the spunky science geek who can sometimes solve complex engineering problems with one glance and who serves as a great role model for girls.

Together with Athena (Raffey Cassidy), her female android sidekick who time-travels and kills evil robots, Casey is a welcome addition to the recently expanding Hollywood pantheon of strong women entrusted to save the world from annihilation - think Interstellar, The Hunger Games, Jupiter Rising and Divergent.

If only the plot was as forward-looking and future-ready as its gender representation, Tomorrowland might have actually been a ride to remember.

Rating: C