A Review of Tomorrowland by Nick Olszyk
MPAA Rating, PG
USCCB Rating, A-II
Reel Rating, Three Reels
Like
the vast revolving jet ride from the attraction that inspired it, Tomorrowland feels a bit uneven,
disjointed, and even a contradiction in terms. It’s a kid flick but relies
heavily on nostalgia. The story is pretty dumb and at times naïve, but because
it’s helmed by Brad Bird with his top notch crew, it’s very well written and
thoroughly enjoyable. This strange contraption is fun and silly but like one of
its central characters is still in search of something more.
Tomorrowland is Interstellar for tweens. Teenage something Casey (Britt Robertson)
is a whiz kid with a NASA engineer for a dad who wants to use science to change
the world for the better but is constantly told the destruction of civilization
is inevitable. After leaving prison for sabotaging the demolition of a shuttle
launch pad, she receives a mysterious pin that transports her to futuristic
world when she touches it. This amazing place called “Tomorrowland” is filled
with jet packs, anti-gravity swimming pools, and chocolate milkshakes that
provide endless youth – a good culinary choice for immortality. When the pin
stops working, she goes searching for another route only to find deadly robots
bent on her destruction until she is rescued by Athena (Raffey Cassidy) – also
a deadly robot but this one wants to help her return to Tomorrowland. Cassidy’s
performance is the hidden gem in an otherwise okay movie. She is serious yet
sentimental, intense yet relaxed and at only twelve holds her own against – and
at times surpasses – the acting of George Clooney and Hugh Laurie. Athena
brings Casey to retired inventor Frank Walker (Clooney), an exile who knows the
way back. When these three companions finally make it, they discover that this
new world has no real concern for the problems of tomorrow and may be making
things even worse.
There’s
gleeful spirit in Tomorrowland that
captures perfectly the eight year old seeing the wonders of baking soda and
vinegar mixing for the first time. It’s fun to make up neat gadgets and figure
out how things work. As a child, Frank brought a prototype jet pack to the 1964
World’s Fair – which also saw the premiere of another infamous Disney ride. The
judge quickly dismisses his idea. “It doesn’t work,” he mumbles. “Can’t it just
be cool?” Frank replies. The judge has a point – science should be at the
service of mankind, making it easier for people to receive the goods and services
needed for a fulfilling life. Yet science is also beautiful in its own right as
an example of God’s aesthetic omniscience. The medieval philosophers who gave
birth to the modern scientific industry understood this. They were mostly
clerics who tried to figure out the movement of the stars or the variations on
pea pods simply because it was interesting. Isaac Newton invented Calculus
simply to answer a question about the shape of cones. It didn’t help the crops
grow faster – it was just fun.
This
utopia that Tomorrowland appears to be in the first half of the film quickly
becomes a dystopia after Frank, Casey, and Athena arrive. Rather than being
brave enough to solve the problems of the world, the residents are simply
watching the clock run down safely from a distance. Bird clearly illustrates
that the problem isn’t science but humanity. What needs fixing is hearts. The
solution Casey concocts is, frankly, pretty cheesy, amounting to the recreation
of a famous Coke commercial from the 1970s. However, she does channel an
important human virtue: hope. “There are two wolves,” she explains. “One is
darkness. The other is light. Which one wins? The one you feed.” Science can be
a medium of hope, but it comes from believing in good over evil.
There’s a gentle
sadness that casts a shadow over Tomorrowland.
It thinks that humanity is at a tipping point where things could go south very
quickly. Without giving into despair, there’s a measure of truth to this. Never
at any point in human history has the consequences of any given action been so
immediate. A single rash comment made online can instantly ruin a reputation. A
single bomb has the potential to kill hundreds of thousands of people. “How do
we fix it?” This question is asked constantly in the film, but it misses the
answer. The solution is Jesus. He already “fixed it” in the Pascal Mystery. If man
directs his worship and morality towards Him, his science will be effective and
peace will come. Maybe not in this life, but certainly in the next. That is a
tomorrow worth hoping for.
This article first appeared in Catholic World Report on May 25th, 2015.
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