"TOMORROWLAND" TIMELY, UPLIFTING

TOMORROWLAND

Starring George Clooney,

Britt Robertson,

Hugh Laurie,

Raffey Cassidy,

Pierce Gagnon,

Tim McGraw,

Thomas Robinson,

Matthew MacCaull

Directed by Brad Bird

Written by Damon Lindelof and Brad Bird

Runtime 130 mins.

Rated PG

 

           

George Clooney brings credibility to this solid sci-fi family fare from Disney. Directed by Brad Bird, "Tomorrowland" takes on the task of making another feature film from a physical feature of Disneyland and succeeds.

           

Casey (Robertson) understands machines and how things work. When her NASA engineer dad (McGraw) faces losing his job, she tries to help, and in the process meets Athena (Cassidy), who seems to be a twelve year-old girl, and finds a little round pin bearing a stylized letter “T” which, when touched, takes her to a strange land.

           

We’ve seen one of these pins before, because slightly earlier we find George Clooney’s character, Frank Walker, was also given one by the same girl, and he was also immediately transported to the same wondrous world.

           

One of the neatest things they manage to do with this movie is incorporate the 1964 World’s Fair, for which the It’s a Small World ride was built. Here they take what I consider one of the lamer rides and introduce an imaginative aspect which certainly improves it.

           

In "Tomorrowland," robots and jet packs abound. Robots, especially. "Matrix"-ish ones in suits chase Casey, Frank and Athena, and this provides most of the action as Casey looks on the positive side trying to ward off the end of the world.

           

Something else remarkable about this movie is the lack of a boyfriend required for Casey. It’s unique in film to see a smart, attractive young woman star in a story and be heroic without any aspect of romance. The real romance in "Tomorrowland" is entertaining a bright, positive future.

           

Naturally the film has its faults. There are a few holes here and there. For instance, why doesn’t touching the pin zap young Frank to Tomorrowland the way touching the pin takes Casey there? And why do the robots move and sound like people until we know that they’re robots, in which case they then sound slow and robotic?

           

Triflings aside, the enthusiastic spirit permeating this movie is a cinematic breath of fresh air. "Tomorrowland" doesn’t exceed the first "Pirates of the Caribbean," but it’s better than "The Haunted Mansion."

          

I’m inspired already. "Big Thunder Mountain." There’s a movie for imagining right there. "Matterhorn," there’s another....

Stewart Kirby writes for

THE INDEPENDENT

REVVED-UP “MAD MAX” IGNITES BIG SCREEN

MAD MAX: FURY ROAD

Starring Tom Hardy,

Charlize Theron,

Nicholas Hoult,

Hugh Keays-Byrne,

Nathan Jones,

Zoe Kravitz,

Abbey Lee

Directed by George Miller

Written by George Miller, Brendan McCarthy, Nick Lathouris

Runtime 120 mins.

Rated R

  

           

Thirty years after Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, writer/director George Miller brings a slam-bang post-apocalyptic vision to the screen every bit as powerful as his cult sci-fi classic The Road Warrior.

           

In a dark and brutal future, vestiges of humanity tear around the desert in wicked cars. A warlord of sorts called Immortan Joe (Keays-Byrne), who controls the water, leads his fanatical followers in a high-speed chase across a barren world to retrieve a group of women he has held enslaved. Their liberator, Furiosa (Theron), with the help of an escaped captive of Immortan Joe named Max (Hardy), tries to escape to the green land she recalls from her youth.

           

Of the three entries in what used to be a trilogy (Mad Max was released in 1979) the 1981 sequel, The Road Warrior, stands out as the best. Well aware of this, Miller takes everything that worked before and creates a high-octane picture with motion unlike any other. The entire film is one great chase, studded with nonstop action.

           

Set aside vague skepticism of anyone but Mel Gibson in the role of Mad Max. As the one-time cop reduced to a desperate, haunted loner, Tom Hardy does the character more than justice. Similarly, Charlize Theron’s Furiosa is as gritty and compelling as Max.

           

One of the strengths of the franchise in its original as well as rebooted form is the nasty gallows humor of this feral world. Talk about your side-splitters, remember the kid in The Road Warrior with the sharpened boomerang and the guy who tries to grab it? Good times. When hooting dregs vying bloodlust straddle hoods of speeding cars and open fire, we get a charge out of the extreme results, especially when we see bad things happen to the bad guys.

           

Fighting to the death for a little bit of gasoline having already been done, this time the focus is on protecting several women. Mindless minions of Immortan Joe, white males all, gleefully sacrifice their lives, diving from one careening vehicle to another like jacked-up zombies. The resultant feast of stylized action stays with the viewer long after the film has stopped.

         

 Stewart Kirby writes for

CRITTERSPEAK

THE SQUIRREL, CLAD IN stolen doll clothing, regarded Elsa from the top of the fence with suspicion.

Ordinarily--not that anything in Elsa's dozen years had been particularly ordinary--she would have considered a wild squirrel wearing a tidy little jacket a jaw-dropping event in and of itself, indeed. And when the squirrel chattered away in English (such as it was), that would have particularly increased Elsa's incredulity, were it not for the preparation her father gave her upon her arrival that summer.

"You know how I told you about Area 51," Elsa's father had said, "and Dreamland projects?"

"Of course," Elsa replied. And true it was, for her father had been careful to educate his daughter regarding the basics since Day One.

"Well there was an accident around here not long ago. Some say a truck spilled with a bunch of strange, alien stuff inside. Other stories point to a breach in a secret underground facility. Whatever the case, a lot of weird things happen with the animals now."

"Like what?"

"Like the government has been working with aliens on ways to get animals to talk for years. They were working on a pill that people could give their pets, and gradually get them to actually speak a few words. But things got out of control."

Elsa returned the squirrel's stare.

"What do you require, sir?" she said, suddenly breaking the silence.

The squirrel chittered, then rose to his full height and said, "Hear me, humie! You have walnuts, and pecans!"

This was true. And almonds, too. Elsa had left a handful of nuts on a log soon after showing up at the house...

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