Made Movies: Tomorrowland Review

The fantastical world of “Tomorrowland” has arrived and it evokes the ideas of yesteryear to make an enjoyable ride from start to finish.

The film centers on a bright young girl named Casey Newton (Britt Robertson), who receives a pin that shows her glimpses into another world that leads her to Frank Walker (George Clooney), an aged former boy-genius inventor and they embark on a journey to the long hidden world of “Tomorrowland”.

Director Brad Bird made a cautionary science fiction tale with a lengthy runtime that flies by. It’s near impossible for audience not to be amazed by the sights and sounds as creativity comes to life on the big screen, forgetting that another hour just passed by.

The highlight of the film is any scene with Raffey Cassidy, who plays Athena and is acting circles around her fellow co-stars. This 12 year old is holding her own in scenes with a veteran actor like Clooney, while bring charm and heart to the experience.

The first quarter of “Tomorrowland” is a mixed bag until the whole crew unites for the adventure, then it picks up and never stops. Jokes for example are rarely something that everyone ever laughed at, it’s either one person or the other chuckling, furthering the notion that some parts are disjointed by a split audience.

The film is a bit all over the place in terms of coherence, with a few points feeling likes it’s geared towards children, while most of it feeling like it’s a sci-fi action film aimed for teens and adults, supported by the ending that will undoubtedly go over the heads of young viewers.

The lowest point of the film is after the opening sequence when it’s focusing on Casey, she just doesn’t have that much going on with her. Casey was just not as interesting as other characters, such as Frank and Athena, who had a way more compelling backstory and dialogue.

The music was a little grating at certain points, in case some forgot they were watching a Disney movie, the horns would come blaring in to remind them. These are few and far between and by the end, you either accept the campiness or don’t.

The “dead mom” cliché is also reminds that it’s a Disney movie. There must have been a law made years ago making it illegal to have a mother figure in these stories, as Casey’s mom leaves the film as if to say to viewers ”you know how this goes”.

The world they build was so fascinating and it’s a shame they didn’t explore it more. Athena alludes to other people that also received the pin, basically teasing other stories taking place before/during the movie’s start. There was more lore than there was actual story, which is still a good thing.

“Tomorrowland” is filled with many great fight scenes that feature a lot of creative weapons and gadgets. The best uses of these gadgets are shown when Frank’s house was under attack, making for a thrilling scene as he and Casey try to escape.

Inspired by a time when imagination was at the forefront, Frank tells Casey and basically audience members that want to nitpick into the science something to the effect of “can’t you just be amazed and move on?”

The set and costume design is excellent, really nailing the futuristic 50’s look and a city that looks like it was designed by a bunch of dreamers.

An aspect of where everything doesn’t stand as tall is the special effects. At times they look exceptional when used in smaller instances, while in other moments they look like something off of Youtube in 2008.

Hugh Laurie’s Nix character is the antagonist of the film and really embodies that word, because he’s not really a villain, but rather somebody in the way of the trio completing the journey. His reasoning for wanting to stop them is so reasonable, I found myself kind of rooting for him to win.

“Tomorrowland” is a great complex concept, that’s acceptable when it drops the ball at points only because of how good it is when it does deliver. It features everything, a British “villain”, compelling twists and the brilliant Raffey Cassidy; I just had to give her another shout out and find a way to end this review abru-

Made Movies: Avengers: Age of Ultron Review

There’s many ways to spend two hours, doing charity work, fighting a cougar, or accepting that “ I’m home alone” text. Only two of those will make you scream like a schoolgirl in the way “Avengers: Age of Ultron” did.

“Age of Ultron” has the team facing a new robotic villain created by Tony Stark(Robert Downey Jr) that sets to destroy The Avengers and the world. The team will have to face internal struggles on top of possibly the biggest threat they’ve faced to date.

Character interactions stood out as the strong point as watching these characters banter is the heart and soul of this movie. The engaging dialogue makes it hard to notice any long period of no action not on screen because the audience is hanging on to every word.

Writer/Director, Joss Whedon, continues to show this movie is not built off of huge action pieces, but also a script. The running jokes were strong throughout, making for bigger laughs each time showing that.

This movie plays with more complicated themes, which excel the more straightforward original in the aspect with concepts like, good and evil, playing God, are Thor’s abs real, the important stuff.

The two most expendable Avengers got the most character development this time around, with Black Widow(Scarlett Johansson) and Hawkeye(Jeremy Renner) got to showcase why they deserve to be in this film.

Aaron Taylor-Johnson’s Quicksilver didn’t live up to the bar set by Evan Peters standout performance last year in X-Men. His acting, was perfectly fine, it was more like Quicksilver was just there and didn’t do much.

Elizabeth Olsen’s Scarlet Witch was the best new character and the one to look out for going forward. Her powers and vengeful personality add a new dynamic that brings life to her scenes.

The opening scene started out strong with perhaps the best set piece in the film showing the Avengers do what they do best, cause mass amounts of damage no insurance will cover.

The action was very well choreographed and directed, but there weren’t really as many stand out moments like in the last film, the triple threat in the forest or Hulk smashing Loki.

The movie doesn’t recapture that magic the first did with seeing all these larger than life characters together on screen for the first time ever. It takes a few steps forward and you know the rest of this sentence.

Parts such as the South Korea sequence were forgettable and would have been best left on the cutting room floor. Thor has a subplot that doesn’t really go anywhere; luckily things go so quick these are minor gripes.

It’s easy to see that the cast are so used to these characters after playing them so long. Little ad-libs like Tony Stark doing a little bit of dancing and humming as he invades an enemy fortress are loved and welcomed.

Ultron(James Spader) is a cunning villain, who was also sympathetic because he believed everything did was actually good, instead of the cliché “I’m evil”, while twirling his robotic mustache(rostache?). Yet, never feeling unbeatable, it was more like a question of when the team would defeat him rather than if they would.

Setting up the seeds for Civil War in this film gave great glimpses of what’s to come in next year’s movie when the heroes battle each other. There are many tense sense involving Cap and Tony that give audiences of mouth covering moments.

The 3-D felt like it was an afterthought and the only reason someone wouldn’t forget it was because ever so often the movie would throw a pebble or shoe, except in 3-D! This is disappointing considering how the previous Marvel movie “Guardians of the Galaxy”, made such good use of it.

The film is great and stands solid by itself, but when comparing it to the previous Avenger’s film or even the more recent Marvel film’s like Guardians or Winter Solider, it doesn’t stand as tall. “Age of Ultron” is a great summer flick with depth and some content that fumbles in parts.

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