Tomorrowland
Long before the credits roll, Tomorrowland will have you craving a theme park turkey leg and planning a meet up at Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride.
To be fair, it’s hardly the first time Disney has gone meta at the multiplex. They’ve had recent success with films based on their rides, and films based on their films. Now they’re moved on to an entire section of the Magic Kingdom, so why does it feel like you never stop standing in line?
Mostly, because there’s so much talk and little action.
George Clooney brings his considerable star power to the role of Frank, a former boy genius who was accepted into the other-worldly community of “Tomorrowland” in 1964. Twenty years later, he was exiled, apparently for inventing something that opened an unwelcome Pandora’s Box.
Now, in present day, Frank is convinced to make a return trip after receiving a surprise visit from Casey (Britt Robertson, mugging frequently), a scientifically-gifted teenager who just might be the key to saving the future.
That’s the short version. There are plenty more convolutions, conversations and explanations involved that only mute the magic the film so desperately seeks.
Director/co-writer Brad Bird made his name in animation (The Iron Giant/The Incredibles), but the considerable visual flair he brought to Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol whet appetites for more live action ventures. Tomorrowland does sport plenty of cool-looking jet packs and rocket ships to-ing and fro-ing, but the film’s pace is slowed to a crawl from the heavy load of exposition. The fun just never has a chance to get airborne.
That’s not the only irony. Tomorrowland‘s message that children are our future is obvious and repetitive, but most likely lost on kids themselves. The little ones won’t keep up and the teens will roll their eyes at the pandering. Everybody else will just fight the boredom.
Poltergeist
Thirty three years ago, Steven Spielberg unleashed two tales of supernatural contact in anonymous, suburban neighborhoods. Things went better for Elliott.
Between producer Spielberg’s sense of awe and director Tobe Hooper’s capacity for imaginative terror, the original Poltergeist far exceeded expectations, and though several sequences have not aged well, it remains a potent horror show.
A generation later, we return to Glen Echo Circle, now the victim of a downturned economy, as are the Bowens. Sam Rockwell and Rosemary DeWitt play the parents unwillingly relocating their three kids to the neighborhood to accommodate their now-more-modest means. Their son Griffin (Kyle Catlett) doesn’t like his room because of the creepy tree outside, but little Maddie (adorable Kennedi Clements) is already making friends.
This is a tough film to remake. The original combined superficial thrills with primal fears and offered the giddy mix of Spielberg’s wonder and Hooper’s twisted vision. Wisely, director Gil Kenan started with a solid cast.
Rockwell is always a good bet and DeWitt is fast becoming the go-to for authenticity in the suburban mom role. Jared Hess offers a little panache as the medium who cleans houses, and the supporting performers turn in respectable work.
Kenan can’t seem to decide whether or not to embrace the original’s more iconic moments, and his revisions feel more like obligation than inspiration. What his version lacks is a big punch. He’s hampered by audience expectation – we kind of know what’s coming, after all – but that doesn’t excuse his lack of imagination.
The director proved a savvy storyteller with his Oscar-nominated animated nightmare Monster House, a film that was surprisingly terrifying for a kids’ movie. That kind of exuberance could have infected this production, but the sequel lacks energy.
Poltergeist is not a bad movie, just disappointing. A lot of reboots are, but there are some that feel like one filmmaker’s love letter to a movie. Films like The Ring, The Crazies, Dawn of the Dead, and more recently, Evil Dead work as reboots because they inhabited an old story but found a new voice. Kenan doesn’t find his. The result is entertaining and forgettable.
Slow West
How about a good throwback western?
Slow West is just that. Quiet by summer blockbuster standards, but a solid piece of filmmaking, flush as it is with understated writing, authentic performances and stirring panoramic visuals.
16 year-old Jay (Kodi Smit-McPhee) is a young man on quite a mission. He set out from his home in Scotland, traveling alone across the frontier in 19th century America, with hopes of joining his beloved Rose (Caren Pistorious) for a new life in a new land. But there are complications to this true love story. A nasty bit of drama back home earned Rose and her father a price on their heads, which means plenty of outlaws are hunting them as well.
One of those is the strong, mostly silent Silas (Michael Fassbender). After crossing paths with the naive teenager and hearing his story, Silas secretly thanks Lady Luck and offers Jay a bit of protection on his slow journey to Rose.
Writer/director John Maclean, in his feature debut, taps into the spirit of classic westerns with an impressive level of confident restraint. These themes of innocence amid moral decay, of lost souls seeking redemption, are genre benchmarks, but Maclean knows they can still be effective.
He’s right. His script isn’t wordy, and his camera isn’t showy, but both set a solid foundation to make two outstanding shoot-out sequences that much more effective. Maclean’s instincts for actors isn’t bad either. Smit-McPhee is a believable babe in the woods, Fassbender delivers non-stop steely charisma, and Ben Mendelsohn, showing up midway through the film with an attitude as big as his fur coat, brings a fresh set of questionable allegiances.
Like its characters, Slow West is a film determined to make the destination worthy of the journey. Buoyed by talented actors, pristine cinematography and a filmmaker smart enough to know when less is more, it is.
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