Review: Tomorrowland

How do I sell to thee... Let me count the ways!

2 stars

Mini Review:

This movie has great ideas, and the vision is spectacular, but you are never really away from the marketing guys. Disney sells, sells and sells everything here. 

Main Review:

Is Tomorrowland a new theme park Disney is building in the corn belt? This movie surely felt like that! It could have been full of fun had the marketing guys not made the selling so obvious!

How do I sell to thee... Let me count the ways...

There is the 'It's a small world after all' ride... There are pins Disney is hoping kids are going to fight over, hoping parents will buy the pin cases as well, marketed as pencil boxes and NASA and Tomorrowland hats kids are going to scream for. Clothes that the young girl wears will be available at the Disney store, and her bicycle and her remote controlled toy helicopter too... For parents with deep pockets, the Athena robot will be available and kids will want it only if it is in its final shutdown moments (the Disney technicians will charge it extra to make it flit from one language to another randomly). There will be neon lit laser guns - toys of course - for kids of ages 4 and up, neon rings extra, batteries not included. Of course mothers could order wigs for their kids so they look like young George Clooney

Of course the new theme park will employ guides who look like George Clooney, who will demonstrate all kinds of gadgets in different rides for which you will have to wait in an endless queue. But you've been to every Disney park with your brats, so you will be used to waiting.

In the movie you too will learn to wait for the fun parts. Yes, there are some really cool fun parts. But the marketing guys are busy figuring out whether people do want to sit in a bathtub and...

There is so much preaching between the fun parts that you will be forced to pay for someone to sit next to you to wake you up after the preaching about environment, about optimism, about the power of dreams, about not lying to parents, about feeding wolves etc., is over. Some of you would have smashed your expensive smartphones on your foreheads after all that preaching and will regret not paying someone to wake you up for the fun parts...

There is a fun movie hidden between all the obvious marketing gimmicks and the preaching. But at 130 minutes, it is too much of a treasure hunt. With George Clooney looking like he might sport a dad bod and that he showed up at the shoot simply because someone had a gun to his head, this becomes even more annoying. But the young kids are great watch and it is unfair to them that the grown ups are either look bored or are terrible baddies dressed in really shoddy clothes. 

Those who have kids, and must take them to watch Tomorrowland, make sure you take lots of moolah to the movies. Disney will probably set up a store to sell all those goodies right inside the multiplex!