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Of course a movie based on a section of a theme park isn't going to be good. It can't be. Is it really that hard to come up with ideas for movies?
"It's about…the future. George Clooney to star."
"GREEN-LIGHT THAT SHIT, BRAH."
My editor insists I include more plot summary in my reviews so I'm just gonna attempt to describe what I saw and you decide for yourself if I'm being too harsh:
During the 1964 World's Fair, a tiny British girl convinces a plucky young boy to wear a pin that magically transports him to a distant future and leaves his family behind. But it's fine because he's supersmart and his dad was a dick anyway. Plus, he might be in love with the girl.
Everything is shiny and white and there's lots of product placement, so it's just how Disney would imagine The Future.
Then, in present day (so, later than when the boy left but earlier than when he arrived in the Shiny Place [brought to you by Coke!]) that same tiny British girl, who hasn't aged a day, recruits another plucky youth. Because now the future has gone to shit and needs to be saved, and apparently the only thing that can do it is mechanically inclined teenagers.
It turns out The Future wasn't the future at all but actually another dimension! Why? How? Because of tachyons, obviously! The Future was invented/discovered by four geniuses in the '20s and used to siphon off all of the smart, artistic people and give them a place to create stuff "free from bureaucracy."
If this is sounding terrifyingly Randian, that's because it is exactly the same plot as Atlas Shrugged, but with more child actors. Who is John Galt? A tiny British girl who is secretly a robot from another dimension. This explains why she's not aging, but leads to some SUPER AWKWARD sexual tension with Clooney, who's been aging at normal speed while still in love with her.
I've never wanted to watch a movie where I have to spend a whole scene praying that George will kiss a girl on the forehead and not the mouth. But it really looks like he's going to kiss her on the mouth. I guess technically it doesn't matter that she looks 8 because she's actually a 125-year-old robot, but you try to tell my gag reflex that.
Anyway, he's older now and he's back on Regular Dumb Earth because he got kicked out of Magic Future Other Dimension Earth (sponsored by Apple!) when he finds out his beloved was an android and loses hope for the future. Becauseâand you really should have seen this comingâthe other dimension is powered exclusively by optimism. Well, optimism and tachyons. But that's the way the world is broken down, the glass-is-half-full people are awesome and the half-empty people are evil.
Clooney was bumming everybody out with his bullshit "my girlfriend is a robot" bullshit, so they sent him back to Todayland. Now it's up to him, Robot Jail Bait, and a new kid to save the world because Normal Earth is about to be destroyed by a montage of every bad thing that can happen: war, fire, flooding and protests.
But Alex (that's me), why do people protesting stuff cause an apocalypse just like a worldwide flood from global warming? TACHYONS, IDIOT! But then, before the world can destroy itself, the plucky girl believes she can fix everything. That tiny injection of hope for the future is all it takes to make everything great again! Being optimistic saved the world!
And so the weirdos in Atlas Shrugged Future Earth (brought to you by Chevy!) go back to recruiting all the cool people away from the less-doomed-now Earth. This kinda makes it seem like the whole reason we were so fucked in the first place was these assholes taking away everybody with any talent!
Oh, and somewhere back there they fly a steampunk rocket ship out of the Eiffel Tower.
Also Hugh Laurie's in it, and I like him.
Critic's Grade: C
WWeek 2015