The good news is that Tomorrowland looks as visionary as its title, from spires stretching into the sky to jet packs; from levitating trains to pools unencumbered by gravity.  Tomorrowland implies cool futuristic stuff, and it delivers on that promise. The bad news is that the story sucks.  I don’t use that term often, partly because it is unnecessarily harsh, but I think it applies in this case.  I was dissatisfied with the film while I was watching it and it has bothered me ever-increasingly since.

Instead of “Tomorrowland” being a place of wonder, as the opening promises, it turns out to be just an advertising pitch.  The actual place — in another dimension! — is mired in the same miasma as our own world (I guess that makes sense, but how depressing).  Then we learn that its monitor of our world is actually encouraging all the lousy things that are happening here: war, famine, pestilence, hatred, climate change, terrorism.  Wait, what?  Exactly.  And only our intrepid heroes (bewhiskered George Clooney and spunky Britt Robertson) can stop the coming apocalypse.  Right.

Brad Bird’s film tries to be everything: family adventure, science-fiction wonderment, robot thriller, chase movie, philosophy lesson.  No wonder it fails.  The development of Clooney’s character never occurs.  Why was he booted out of Tomorrowland in the first place?  Why has he done nothing since?  Even worse is Hugh Laurie’s character, who is more robotic than the robots that populate the story.  And in a film that wants to entertain children and families, there appears a pack of killer robots.  Robots that go around actually killing people.  Nice touch, Disney.

This is the fourth film this year, by my count, that explores potential robot sentience, and is easily the worst of them.  This project should have been truly impressive (and is, visually), but whoever gave the green light to the script ought to be fired.  The premise of Tomorrowland should be limitless, but this script mangles and smashes the future into a stupid, dreary place we don’t want to go.  And don’t even get me started on the Eiffel Tower.  As Hugh Laurie’s character says in his penultimate moment: “Oh, bollocks.”  ☆ 1/2.