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Budget committee nixes solar farm, AHS-to-SOU scholarships ... Memorial Day rites set for Monday ... GOP's war on the poor ... Budget committee nixes solar farm, AHS-to-SOU scholarships ... Memorial Day rites set for Monday ... Review: 'Tomorrowland' feels like another Disneyland staple — Dopey Comment By Christopher Lawrence The Las Vegas Review-Journal DailyTidings.com By Christopher Lawrence The Las Vegas Review-Journal Posted May. 22, 2015 at 12:01 AM By Christopher Lawrence The Las Vegas Review-Journal Posted May. 22, 2015 at 12:01 AM » Social News As movies loosely based on Disneyland attractions go, “Tomorrowland” is a far cry from the rollicking heights of the original “Pirates of the Caribbean.” Still, it’s worlds better than “The Haunted Mansion” and “The Country Bears.” Despite all the whiz-bang moments created by writer Damon Lindelof (“Lost”) and writer-director Brad Bird (“The Incredibles”), the hyper-secretive “Tomorrowland” ultimately has a lot in common with another Disneyland staple: It’s pretty Dopey. The family-friendly sci-fi tale kicks off with some off-puttingly cutesy bickering between jaded inventor Frank Walker (George Clooney) and teen science prodigy Casey Newton (Britt Robertson) before we see a flashback of Frank as a boy genius (Thomas Robinson) lugging his homemade jet pack to compete at the Halls of Invention at the 1964 World’s Fair. The competition’s judge (Hugh Laurie) asks him how it makes the world a better place. It doesn’t, obviously, but Frank wonders aloud, “Can’t it just be fun?” It’s a line that’s bound to haunt the filmmakers once audiences suffer through some of “Tomorrowland’s” preachier moments. After Frank’s rejection, 11-year-old Athena (Raffey Cassidy) takes a liking to him, hands Frank a futuristic-looking pin and tells him to follow her onto the “It’s a Small World” ride. Once on board, a laser scans the pin, the bottom drops out of the ride and Frank is sent on a log flume toward a transporter to another dimension, where he’s briefly shown zooming around Tomorrowland, “Rocketeer”-style. “And then,” Clooney’s Frank says, “Everything went to hell.” So we spend the next hour or so in 2014 with Casey, who gets arrested for breaking into a NASA launch site and trying to stop its pending demolition. Upon her release, she finds a pin just like Frank’s among her belongings. Touching it gives her visions of Tomorrowland, which looks a bit like “Back to the Future Part II” without the hoverboards. Pretty much everything else hovers, though, as Tomorrowlanders make use of hovercars, hovertrains and hoverstrollers. Before Athena, who seemingly hasn’t aged a day, can teach her about the pin’s powers, Casey uses up all of its juice. When she can no longer see that utopia, she leaves Florida on a bus searching for answers. Not surprisingly, considering the pedigrees of Lindelof and Bird, “Tomorrowland” has its moments of joy. The scenes of Casey in a retro sci-fi shop (run by Kathryn Hahn and Keegan-Michael Key) are a blast, if for no other reason than the chance to scour its shelves for collectibles from Bird’s breakthrough, “The Iron Giant,” as well as Disney-owned properties including “Star Wars” and “The Black Hole.” And there’s some gentle fun in watching the adult Frank defend himself and his pesky visitor, Casey, from an army of grinning killer androids by using a variety of gizmos, doohickeys and thingamawhatsits. There’s just nowhere near as much excitement as you’d expect for a movie all about a place, “millions of exponential deviances away,” built by the smartest people in the world. There’s also shockingly little Tomorrowland in “Tomorrowland.” As a result, the movie feels less like a thrill ride than “An Inconvenient Truth: The Ride.” The end of the world is just days away, a fact we know because Frank was exiled from Tomorrowland 30 years ago for harnessing the power of tachyons to create a device that lets its user see the past or the future by skimming along a globe like a space-time version of Google Street View. In “Tomorrowland’s” most unabashedly Disney moments, it’s revealed that the only way to save the planet from the ravages of climate change, war and famine is through hope. There’s so much emphasis placed on the power of positive thinking, a “story by” credit should be given to Norman Vincent Peale. For most of “Tomorrowland,” Clooney is stuck in grumpy, get-off-my-lawn mode, while Robertson is asked to do little more than look on in wide-eyed amazement and scream “No way!” The ending, meanwhile, is nearly as abrupt and frustrating as the one in “Fifty Shades of Grey.” There’s no happiness to be found in knocking “Tomorrowland.” The world already has too much negativity, a point the movie too often slams home, and it’s a shame to have to contribute to it. Especially since the film’s heart is in the right place — right there on its sleeve. You have to applaud its originality. “Tomorrowland” isn’t a sequel, a remake or a reboot, and it isn’t based on a comic book, toy or video game. It resembles the section of Disneyland in name only. And you want to get swept up in its message of making the world a better place. Those sentiments, though, are delivered so ham-fistedly, they feel more like they belong in Fantasyland. That’s why the chances you’ll ever want to return to Tomorrowland belong in another popular Disney realm: Neverland. Review: “Tomorrowland,” 124 minutes, rated PG for sequences of sci-fi action violence and peril, thematic elements and language. Grade: C. By Christopher Lawrence The Las Vegas Review-Journal DailyTidings.com By Christopher Lawrence The Las Vegas Review-Journal Posted May. 22, 2015 at 12:01 AM » Comment or view comments Reader Reaction » STAY INFORMED Email NewsLetter Sign Up Today Sign up for our newsletter and have the top headlines from your community delivered right to your inbox. Southern Oregon Directory Featured Businesses Loading... 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