Tomorrowland: A World Beyond

If, like me some people, you are thirty-ten years old and a victim of the cruel twist of nature that is male pattern baldness, and you carry upon your shoulders the weight of cynicism that forces you to sneer at pretty much everything, and you feel like the best life has to offer has been and gone, and you have more or less abandoned all hope for a bright future, then good news! The excessively-titled Tomorrowland: A World Beyond is here to rekindle those feelings of youth, innocence and hope you thought were lost forever. Don't worry though: those feelings won't last long, destined as they are to be almost entirely negated by something we may be tempted to refer to as The Lindelof Effect.

Quite the track record, Linders!

(Actually I quite like Star Trek Into Darkness but don't tell anyone)

But more on that later. For now, imagine a film in which George Clooney hops about between this world and another which resembles a mad episode of Futurama, accompanied by two young girls, one of whom is an idealistic, principled teenager and the other a creepy eleven-year-old with remarkable ass-kicking skillz. Now stop imagining it, because that film exists! Well done you, it's as if you willed it into being with only your puny human mind! It's that kind of inventiveness that Tomorrowland celebrates in spades: it's a shrine to the infinite possibilities of ideas and imagination, and has both coming out of its ears for its ridiculously enjoyable middle hour.

But more on that later. Lurching back to the first act, director Brad Bird and his co-writer Damon Lindelof build a teasing mystery out of Clooney's character as a young whippersnapper who invents the jetpack in 1964, his connection with Athena (Raffey Cassidy), a faintly appalling brat who magically transports him to a parallel dimension where his resourceful nature can be nurtured, and Casey (Britt Robertson, a kind of Diet Jennifer Lawrence), a present-day late teen intent on fixing the world's plethora of ills. Few clues are divulged in these early stages as to what's really going on, but Bird and Lindelof keep you entertained enough not to worry about it, because surely everything will become clear soon, right?

But more on that later. That mid-section, let's not dick about, is an absolute firework display of crazy-brilliant fantastickery. From the moment Casey visits a geek emporium (suspiciously well-stocked with Iron Giant and Incredibles memorabilia), Tomorrowland blasts off for Planet Joy and orbits it for a solid hour, fuelled by some of the wackiest shit seen on screens this year. Not least among the air-punchingly fun incidents are a game of cat-and-mouse inside Clooney's Wallace And Gromit-style house, and an episode involving the Eiffel Tower which gave me a smile so massive that the rest of my face was sucked into it like a black hole of glee. Furthermore, watching Clooney, Robertson and Cassidy bicker their way through the film like a dysfunctional family where the youngest child is the most senior (it's complicated) is a rare treat, and to see two young women play as important a role in a megabucks studio tentpole flick as an older man is immensely satisfying. Between this and Mad Max: Fury Road, those men's rights activists really are going to have their suspiciously sticky hands full.

Come the final act, though, when the realisation dawns that although we've just been on the equivalent of every ride in the park we still don't really know what the point is, The Lindelof Effect kicks in. Tomorrowland starts to feel like it's been barrelling towards a climax it hasn't quite worked out yet, like some kind of popular, enigmatic TV series that had loads of great ideas but a disappointing, half-arsed finale. Possibly it was set on an island or something. Characters' motivations become fuzzy, unwelcome clichés and clumsy plot devices turn up and the conclusion is confusing at best and worrying at worst. It's easy to point the movie blogger's finger at Lindelof given his past crimes, but Brad Bird needn't think he's getting away scott-free; I demand a marked improvement in storytelling by the time The Incredibles 2 rolls out.

It's a real pity, because the ride was so much fun: a deliberate and faithful translation of a shit-hot theme park attraction where the corkscrews and sheer drops sadly give way to a long, straight length of track at the end. Tomorrowland's messages are admirable - that creativity, whether successful or not, inspires others to create, and that you should never forget the wonder of simple things like gazing at a clear night sky with a wide-eyed innocence. It's an Amblinesque counterpart to JJ Abrams' Super 8 (another film that failed to fulfil its promise) and, like that film, will probably appeal enormously to kids capable of just enjoying what's going on in front of them without worrying about what it all means or whether it makes sense like some boring fucking grown-up. For the rest of us those cynical, middle-aged slapheads, Tomorrowland remains a mostly thrilling but ultimately frustrating experience.

Four films I'll be giving a shit about in

CLOUDS OF SILS MARIA

Kristen Stewart's glasses cause me to twitch so violently that I pull a sternocleidomastoid muscle, but by all accounts this meaty-looking drama is worth a week or two in a neck brace. Also, Binoche vs Moretz > Iron Man vs Hulk. (15th)

MAD MAX: FURY ROAD

If this can sustain the insanity of its trailers over the entire running time I'll be a) amazed and b) exhausted, but it is at least a remake that's not unwelcome: Mel Gibson's Mad Max trilogy only escapes being the worst thing on his filmography thanks to the overwhelming stench of The Expendables 3. (15th)

THE TRIBE

Told entirely in sign language and without subtitles, The Tribe is effectively a modern-day silent film. Comparisons to The Artist have been strangely absent though, almost as if this isn't a whimsical, delightful love story with a tinkly piano theme and a cute dog. Holding out hope that it at least has one show-stopping tap dance. (15th)

TOMORROWLAND: A WORLD BEYOND

I am drawn to the work of Damon Lindelof like an idiot moth to a high-concept, badly-written flame, so I will approach this with some degree of caution. That degree of caution, however, is almost entirely cancelled out by the presence of Brad Bird and The Cloon, so fuck it, bring it on. (22nd)

The American

It will come as no surprise that The American looks fantastic, directed as it is by rock photographer Anton Corbijn, who was responsible for some of the most iconic shots of U2 standing in the middle of nowhere looking grumpy that were ever taken, not to mention his previous film Control, which was also grimly beautiful in its own special way.

The improbably-lit Italian town of Castel del Monte looks fantastic, Thekla Reuten looks fantastic in a series of confusing wigs and fabulous outfits, Violante Placido looks fantastic in absolutely nothing, which she is for most of the film, and George Clooney looks like George Clooney.

All of which is a good job because there's not much else about The American to be said. Action and dialogue is minimal, and what does get done or said is fairly predictable.

Fortunately there's still the IMDb Parents' Guide to rely on in cases where there's nowt else to say:

But which is the mostest intensest? And what's the definition of "most"? It just doesn't matter at IMDb Parents' Guide HQ.

This Week's Joke

I note with interest an article on page 25 of this month's Empire magazine, about "The Don of UK PR", Dennis Davidson:

Despite referring to him as "Davidson" throughout the article, Empire have - for reasons best known only to themselves - decided to remove the first letter from his surname in the photo.

Hollywood stars thinking very carefully before giving another interview to Empire in case the same fate befalls them include George Clooney, Michael Fassbender and Hilary Swank.

Zing!

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Up In The Air

If you're looking for reviews of Up In The Air and have several months in which to read them, you're in luck because every bugger out there has used up petabytes of text writing about this whimsical bit of flim flam. Empire cracked off no less than 1,255 words about it, festooning it with red stars like it was some kind of Communist headquarters, while even the usually blissfully concise Ultra Culture managed to stretch its review out to nearly 500 words.

Up In The Air isn't bad as such, quite enjoyable in fact, but in no way is it exceptional, extraordinary or otherwise notable. The acting is good but that's to be expected rather than applauded. George Clooney's character is interesting but ultimately watered down by the film's cheesy message. It's a solid 6 out of 10 film.

Here are the two most interesting things I could find to say about Up In The Air:

• It features the least sexy phone-text-sex scene ever. I get more erotic text messages from Orange telling me how many free minutes I've got this month than George Clooney does from Vera Farmiga. She should have just texted him anagrams of her name, there must be something saucy there.

• The aforementioned Ms Farmiga has been subjected to the most obvious replacement-by-naked-body-double since Tobey Maguire:

So there you have it. Go and see it by all means, but Jesus, no need to go on about it.

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Fantastic Mr. Fox

It may come as a shock to you that The Incredible Suit actually has some kind of qualifications; specifically, I got a C in A Level Film Studies at South Cheshire College. So forgive me if I go all academic for a moment. Don’t worry, it won’t last long.

Wes Anderson is an auteur. His films are characterised by dysfunctional families failing miserably to connect with each other and characters so arch you could put a church on them and call them a doorway. While I respect and admire him for his offbeat filmmaking and great use of music, his films leave me completely cold, with the exception of The Darjeeling Limited, which – for reasons I have yet to fathom – I really like. I think it’s because I’d quite like to trundle across India on a rickety old train, although not with my face rearranged in the style of Picasso like Owen Wilson’s.

Despite being a stop-motion animated adaptation of a Roald Dahl story, Fantastic Mr Fox is no exception. It’s full of characters who don’t like each other, probably because they’re all so unlikeable. They all feel like they’re just words on a page, even with the likes of George Clooney and Meryl Streep providing the voices. In fact if anything, Clooney is a complete distraction as a voice actor because his voice is so recognisable. Part of Up’s success is that the voices are provided by unknowns, so you focus on the characters more than the actors, and you don’t spend the first 15 minutes picturing George Clooney in a perspex box wittering into a microphone.

Having said that, and although Fantastic Mr Fox feels like an unsympathetic Wallace and Gromit film, it does zip along with some panache, to the point where The Incredible Suit can bring you this great news:

What I would most recommend it for, though, is that it includes more alcoholism, smoking, cussing, dismemberment, spousal abuse, theft, knife violence, drugs and animated banjo-playing machine-gun-toting Jarvis Cockers than any kids’ film I’ve ever seen. And that can only be a good thing.

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