Tomorrowland - Brad Bird

I was pleasantly surprised by Tomorrowland, it surpassed my expectations on two fronts. First off, the presentation of Tomorrowland. There is a Tomorrowland sequence, maybe between 5 and 10 minutes, that is worth the entire film. If you see it twice as I did, watch very closely, look to far corners of the city, and notice the details. Tomorrow never looked so hopeful and fun, A+ on visuals.

The second front was the story. I braced myself for something formulaic, childish. While some may come away with that impression, I did not. The three major roles were all done spot-on, interesting, never wasted one moment of on-screen. Every scene moved with purpose just like The Incredibles.

As good as Clooney and Britt Robertson were, I have to give my favorite performance to Raffey Cassidy. This girl brought the sparkle to the film. I look forward to seeing more of her.

The last time I enjoyed a "dreamer" movie this much was The Astronaut Farmer. I'm feeling more persuaded to believe that hoping for a great big beautiful tomorrow is not such a silly thing after all. I stress the word 'hoping' because man will screw it up. Too bad, this film conjures up those old exciting ideas we had about the future. Maybe the hardest thing to digest is that we will never experience something this film was built on, the kind of vision presented at the 1964 Worlds Fairs or Walts original plans for EPCOT.

I've seen it three times and really hoping the DVD will have some good story behind how this concept became a reality.