When it was in production as a top secret project at Disneyland, at first people couldn’t figure out what Tomorrowland was. Is it an adaptation of that section of Disneyland? It was easy to make that guess, because it’s a Disney film, with famed animator Brad Bird (The Iron Giant, The Incredibles) at the helm.
As it turns out, Tomorrowland is a much different kettle of fish altogether, and it’s still a bit hard to figure out what it is exactly. It certainly looks different visually, but how is the movie overall?
Well the initial reviews aren’t that promising. Variety writes, “the forces of mediocrity have largely prevailed over Tomorrowland, a kid-skewing adventure saga that, for all its initial narrative intrigue and visual splendor, winds up feeling like a hollow hucksterish Trojan horse of a movie…the picture runs heavier on canned inspirationalism than actual inspiration.”
Forbes writes that the movie “burns up in orbit,” and it “works as a kid-friendly adventure only to stumble when it finally reveals its half-hearted concepts and ill-defined secrets.” HitFix calls the movie “a dull and oddly preachy vision of the future.”
One dissenting opinion so far is the Hollywood Reporter, who wrote, “Walt would have approved,” but it’s also somewhat of a backhanded review. “The required ingredients for a big summer hit are mostly present and accounted for, but the considerable question remains as to whether the mass audience of the moment is ready to embrace an inventive but less overwhelmingly Marvelous adventure fantasy than is the current norm.”
