Film

Bright future

Tomorrowland

The future is a little confusing and convoluted, but kind of cool anyway, in Tomorrowland, the latest Disney attraction to get its own movie, this time courtesy of director-writer Brad Bird (The Iron Giant, The Incredibles). Boy genius Frank Walker (Thomas Robinson) and his jetpack attend the 1964 World’s Fair in Queens, New York, during a wonderful sequence that recreates the legendary event. After sparring with the curator of an invention contest (Hugh Laurie), the despondent boy winds up on a bench sulking, only to be given a special pin by a mysterious young girl

3named Athena (the absolutely incredible Raffey Cassidy).

During a ride through “It’s a Small World,” which Walt Disney actually did premiere at the fair, Frank finds himself transported to a strange, seemingly future world where Athena resides and robots repair his jetpack. In short, it’s a world where the inventive likes of Frank can thrive. Cut to the present day, where super intelligent teenaged girl Casey (25-year-old Britt Robertson wearing a baseball cap to appear younger) is trying to sabotage the destruction of a Cape Canaveral launch site. She wants to be an astronaut someday, and her dad (Tim McGraw) is a NASA engineer, so no space program means big bummers for Casey. She, too, is given a pin by Athena, who we guess must have the ability to time travel. Casey touches the pin, and is instantly transported to Tomorrowland. After a brief stay, she’s transported back home, much to her chagrin. She eventually winds up in the company of a grown-up Frank Walker (George Clooney … hooray!), who has become a hermit living in a New York house littered with gadgets. Clooney is perfect for the role of a former dreamer who

has grown up to be a little bitter, yet still has time and gumption to make a bathtub that transforms into a rocket. Everything eventually leads to another Tomorrowland visit, where we discover things about the fate of the place and Earth itself. Along the way to the halfway decent finale, Bird provides some great battles by Bob Grimm involving ticked-off robots, dazzling special effects rife with fun Disney Easter eggs bgrimm@ (Space Mountain in the Tomorrowland newsreview.com skyline!) and some great performances. For me, the true star of this movie is Cassidy, a relative newcomer who simply owns every second of her screen time. I’ll call her performance as a futuristic scout with big secrets and an ability to kick major ass one of the year’s best performances so far. Robertson proves a mighty fun protagonist and nets the most screen time. Her character is some sort of child prodigy, although why is never fully revealed. She just sort of knows how to solve things. While she isn’t fully fleshed out, Robertson is a winning enough presence that it’s easy to forgive the shortcomings in the script. Again, she’s playing way below her age, but she pulls it off. Clooney gets to mix in a bit of his cantankerous persona along with his gentle side. He has the classic Hollywood looks that are right at home in a Disney film that longs for nostalgia. It’s some of his more fun work in years. The script was co-written by Lost and Prometheus scribe Damon Lindelof, so, naturally, all of the dots don’t seem to be connected. Lindelof can be a little ambiguous, even confusing at times, but he’s always interesting. If you like your movies tied up in a nice little bow, the works of Lindelof are not for you. As for me, I have a fun time trying to figure his stuff out, even if I don’t come up with all of the answers. The film’s production was shrouded in secrecy, which may have actually hurt it to some extent because some might attend Tomorrowland looking for more than what they actually get. The big reveals don’t necessarily live up to all of the hype. Even so, it’s a fun film, with some great ideas that provide cool mythology for one of Disney’s most popular theme park attractions. Ω

"Do you ever think that maybe this is all just a commercial for an amusement park?"

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excellent 2 Avengers: Age of Ultron You can’t accuse director Joss Whedon of “second verse, same as the first” with this sequel. As things turn out, perhaps it would’ve been OK to retain more of the good humor, camp and non-cluttered thrills that made the original Avengers such a gas. This latest convergence of Marvel superheroes is a flat affair. Nothing of any real consequence happens here other than a bunch of scenes teasing future Marvel movies and some action sequences that lack clarity. With the exception of an interesting smackdown between Iron Man and the Hulk, the action sequences feel repetitive. The main villain, Ultron, is a series of robots voiced by James Spader looking to wipe humans off the face of the Earth. It’s surprising how underwhelming his efforts wind up being. If you’re an Avengers fan, I guess you have to see Age of Ultron simply because it sets up a series of other films and you might find yourself lost when watching future movies. As for Whedon, perhaps he was the wrong man for the gig. He’s gone on record as saying he didn’t have the best of times making this movie, and the fatigue shows. The sequel searches for a darker tonal shift, a sort of Empire Strikes Back for the Avengers. The result is one of the year’s most crushing cinematic letdowns.

4Ex Machina Men playing with microchips learn that perhaps highly intelligent robots aren’t the best idea in this competent and exciting directorial debut from Alex Garland, who also wrote the script. Computer programmer Caleb (Domhnall Gleeson) wins a weekend hanging out with his eccentric, reclusive boss Nathan (Oscar Isaac) at his secluded house in the middle of nowhere. Shortly after arriving, Caleb learns that he’s to take part in an experiment where he must interact with Nathan’s latest creation: a mightily attractive and lifelike robot named Ava (Alicia Vikander). Caleb is told to analyze Ava’s legitimacy as a full-blown A.I., a thinking robot with emotional capability. He does this, and develops a robot crush along the way. Not only is Nathan playing god, but he’s totally using Caleb as a guinea pig. While Garland could’ve easily made this a Caleb vs. Nathan affair, he tosses in enough variables and throws plenty of curveballs to keep the audience guessing. The film works as a thriller, science fiction, a mystery, and even passes a few horror movie tests. Isaac is developing into one of his generation’s best actors, and he’s quite the chameleon. His Nathan is a slithery, hard-drinking, narcissistic, brilliant mess of a human, and a far cry from the grouchy folk singer he played in Inside Llewyn Davis. Garland has been kicking around Hollywood for years, delivering solid screenplays for the likes of 28 Days Later, Dredd and Sunshine. His work behind the camera here definitely points to a future directing if he wants it.

3Furious 7 The latest Furious movie says goodbye to series mainstay Paul Walker while taking car chases to seriously outlandish and fantastical extremes. In some ways, the film has become more of a science fiction offering rather than a car chase movie, and that’s fine by me. I have to admit that part of me got uncomfortable watching Paul Walker racing around in cars a little over a year after he died in a fiery car crash. You can say Walker died doing something he loved, but I’m thinking irresponsible and reckless speeding dropped way down on his favorite things list during the final moments of his life. Like, to the way, way bottom of that list. That said, Furious 7 does spark some life into a very tired franchise by going totally bananas, and it’s pretty remarkable how Walker, who had allegedly only filmed half of his scenes before he died, is inserted into the movie posthumously. Director James Wan, primarily known for horror movies like Saw and The Conjuring, has delivered the franchise’s best offering since the first one. This movie gets my blessing for the sequence involving Vin Diesel’s Dominic Toretto and Walker’s Brian O’Conner jumping a car through not one but two skyscrapers in Abu Dhabi. Will there be an eighth film, even though Walker is no longer with us? Um, given that the movie made nearly $144 million in its opening weekend, I think it’s a foregone conclusion that Universal will find a way to keep the engines running on this sucker. 4 Mad Max: Fury Road George Miller is back in his post apocalyptic world of Mad Max, messing around with fast rigs on desert landscapes. He has a new Max, Tom Hardy replacing Mel Gibson, and Charlize Theron is along for the ride. The results are a blast, probably the best in the franchise when it comes to action. I’m going to have to give a few points to Gibson over Hardy for his Max portrayal. Hardy is good in the role, but Gibson is the original and best Max, even if Gibson is a total asshole. The film starts off with a shot reminiscent of The Road Warrior (a.k.a. Mad Max 2), and then it just goes berserk. Max gets himself captured by a really disgusting looking, villainous ruler named Immortan Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrne) and finds himself hanging upside down and providing blood for a pale, bald Joe minion, Nux (Nicholas Hoult). A shaven-headed Theron shows up as Imperator Furiosa, a one-time loyalist of Immortan Joe, who tricks him and kidnaps his wives, intent on taking them to some sort of green promised land. When Joe figures out she’s making a run for it, his soldiers (who look a little like the cave creatures from The Descent) take off after her. This includes Nux, with Max strapped to the front of his car wearing a facemask reminiscent of his Bane getup in The Dark Knight Rises. The folks who put the look of this movie together, from it’s terrific cinematography, to its costuming to its incredible stunt work, all deserve praise and extra beers.

1Poltergeist In the original Poltergeist, a dude eating a drumstick tears his face off while looking in a mirror, throwing chunks of bloody flesh in a sink. Somehow, that movie managed to get a PG rating. In this remake, Sam Rockwell cries, and somehow they get the PG-13 rating. I love Sam Rockwell, but it’s hard to watch him work up tears for this dreck. Actually, this movie is hard to watch from start to finish, even if you haven’t seen the original. Original director Tobe Hooper (teaming with writer-producer Steven Spielberg) managed a good, horrific treat spiked with humor back in 1982. This paltry remake from director Gil Kenan loses all of the spark of the original, and gives us a routine haunting movie with cheap scares involving clown dolls that don’t actually scare and kid actors who fail to register. I won’t single them out because they are kids, but they do suck. Rockwell and Rosemarie DeWitt squirm through the roles originated by Craig T. Nelson and Jobeth Williams. There was no good reason for this undertaking. The movie shouldn’t have been remade. If somebody dares to try and remake Jaws, I will be truly pissed off. Leave the Spielberg properties alone!

4Slow West Michael Fassbender just keeps on rolling with this one, a gritty, appropriately downbeat Western from writer-director John Maclean. Fassbender plays Silas, a cynical, grouchy rider on the American frontier in the 19th century who comes across Jay, a Scottish boy (Kodi-Smit McPhee) traveling alone in search of Rose (Caren Pistorious), a girl he loves. She and her father had to flee to America after an accident, and now they have a bounty on their heads. Silas knows of the bounty, but he doesn’t tell Jay. After coming across a group of bandits led by Payne (the ever reliable Ben Mendelsohn), Silas must decide on whose side he’s going to back, the boy or the bandits. It’s a great ride, with a vivid depiction of the Old West unlike any I’ve seen before. By the time the action reaches Rose’s farm, a single house out in the middle of nowhere, you get a sense of just how few people were inhabiting that part of the world at this time. McPhee is heartbreaking as a young man who just doesn’t get it, and Fassbender continues to prove he’s a cinematic treasure. They make for a great screen duo. (Available for rent on iTunes, Amazon.com and On Demand during limited theatrical release.)