Tomorrowland follows Casey (Britt Robertson), a teenager keen on fixing the planet. But after intervening too much with her father's activities, she is arrested and finds a mysterious pin in her belongings. This pin supposedly matches her DNA, so that this pin's message is transmitted only to her, from Athena, a robot. Still undergoing her protocols, to find the minds that can shape the future, she helps Casey track down a mysterious man (George Clooney as Frank Walker) to get more pins (these pins have battery life also) but it leads them on a chase across space and time to find this future that could've happened but didn't.
I was mesmerized, at least for the first half. Seeing Casey explore Tomorrowland for the first time was an absolute blast to watch, and her experience ends promising us more. But, other than that, there's no real activity with the people of Tomorrowland afterwards. The city is just glimpsed and glossed over in third act, as David Nix (Hugh Laurie) has to explain his plan to not intervene in the destruction of our world. There were consistent eye-rolls in these last 20 minutes or so, because the climax is seemingly cut short due to time.
After an overtly long and complex prologue, accompanied with a painful voiceover, the story stalls for some time, and Frank (Clooney) isn't even introduced until the first hour or so, and Disney still probably had to write a paycheck up his ass. Tomorrowland is bookended by horrible beginnings and endings, but a few sections are enjoyable, particularly Casey discovering the powers of the pin. Given that, Tomorrowland is still a bummer, not only to itself, but to its viewers.
Lindelof's script is stilted, the villain's motivation is overtly cynical, but Brad Bird's direction and quick movement gets things along nicely, potentially ushering in a new era of modern popcorn entertainment, heavily and evidently influenced by Bird's filmography.
3/5 stars