A month ago, I wrote a post elsewhere about how “A new Disney movie came out today & I don't care.” I was surprised as I used to run right out to the theater as soon as they were released.
Now the new movie, “Strange World,” is available on Disney+. Here's my review.
TL;DR: "I was right not to care."
(I've tried to avoid major SPOILERS, but here's a warning just in case.)
The story follows the Clades, a family of explorers who live in an isolated society called Avalonia. Searcher (Jake Gyllenhaal) is the son of legendary long-lost explorer Jaeger Clade (Dennis Quaid). Rather than following in his father's footsteps, Searcher cultivated a plant called Pando that serves as a power source. But when his crops mysteriously start dying, he's off to find the Heart of Te Fiti...I mean, the Heart of Atlantis...I mean, the Heart of Pando, to see what the trouble is. His own rebellious teenage son Ethan (Jaboukie Young-White) tags along.
“Strange World” has a bit in common with the recent Pixar film “Lightyear.” They both involve a traditional manly-man hero (Buzz and Jaeger) who misses out on life because he's obsessed with his mission. The world in “Strange World” is better than “Lightyear's” Vine-and-Bug Planet, however, “Lightyear” has *one* memorable character – Sox – and that's one more than “Strange World” has.
Searcher is a danger-averse stick-in-the-mud – a character that's harder to like in an adventure story where almost nobody gets hurt. (The first airship pilot gets sucked out the window, but nobody seems to care.)
My reaction to Searcher could relate to the idea that people my age are no longer supposed to see ourselves in the young, rebellious hero – we are now are the boring dad. (I don't have kids, so I can't relate to him in that way, either.)
Ethan feels like a very “how do you do, fellow kids” character. He's a sensitive, idealistic, bi-racial, LGBTQIA+ environmentalist gamer with highly styled hair and an earring. Even the fantasy card game he plays for fun ties in to his Very Important and Serious Societal Ideals: fighting the monsters is a no-no and there are no villains.
As Mr. Burns said to Lisa Simpson: “My God, are you always on?”
Perhaps it's me who's changed. Going into a film like DreamWorks' “How to Train Your Dragon” (2010), I automatically sympathized with the sensitive misfit who wanted to befriend the supposed “monsters” instead of slaying them. Now – I don't know if it's over-exposure or that it feels more like a marketing gimmick, or years of witnessing the behavior of “sensitive” people on social media – but I'm sick of this kind of character. At least when that's all there is to them.
I assumed Ethan's love interest would be along for the adventure. He has one scene near the beginning and I honestly can't remember if he ever appeared again. I guess it's another small step towards an actual gay couple in a Disney movie, but even Aurora and Prince Phillip from “Sleeping Beauty” have a more developed relationship than these two.
When the three generations of Clades are finally reunited, the dialog goes something like this:
JAEGER: “EXPLORER, EXPLORER, EXPLORER!”
SEARCHER: “NO! FARMER, FARMER, FARMER!”
ETHAN: “OMG, YOU GUYS, STOP FIGHTING! CAN'T YOU SEE?! GEN Z, GEN Z, GEN Z!”
(They don't actually say “Gen Z,” but they might as well. I originally wrote "Millennial," which is technically my generation, but then I Googled what the years were.)
Also, I hope you like the word “Pando,” because you'll be hearing a lot of that too.
It is nice that even out-of-touch Grandpa Jaeger doesn't bat an eye when he hears Ethan is romantically interested in another boy. I think that's the way to show it in a movie like this, because it *shouldn't* be a big deal.
As in Ethan's game, the movie has no proper villain. This is partly a good thing for an environmentalist story, as the humans are depicted as more misguided than outright evil. However, it's odd that the classic villains seem to be more popular than ever and yet Disney refuses to make any new ones.
The “Strange World” is the star, really.
The creatures look amazing from afar, floating through the air or lumbering across the land en-masse, but it's a lot harder to sympathize with them when they don't even have faces. Then again, that may be the idea – Ethan is just so gosh-darn sensitive, he can relate to them anyway.
This is the usual sanitized family-film version of an ecosystem, where all the creatures would live in perfect, non-violent harmony if it weren't for those meddlesome humans. That only bugs me in a story where it's front and center, as it is here.
The pantomime animal sidekick is usually my favorite part of a Disney movie. The one featured here, a squishy creature called Splat, does the job fine. It just seems like not much time is devoted to these characters anymore, as if the filmmakers only include them because it's required. One character makes a lampshading joke about wanting to merchandise Splat.
There's also a dog.
Most of the focus is on the main trio and the environment, but we do cut away for a couple conversations between Searcher's pilot wife Meridian (Gabrielle Union) and President Mal (Lucy Liu.) They seem to be setting up a reveal about the latter character. And they are...sort-of...not really. I can only assume those scenes are there so the filmmakers can point to them and go, “Look! Two women talking to each other! WOW!” (Pilot Mom talks about her family, which consists of three men, so these scenes don't even make the movie pass the Bechdel Test.)
Pretty much everything that's supposed to be remarkable about this movie has already been by Disney's own animated TV shows – and in most cases, done better.
Estranged family members reunite against the backdrop of an adventure story?
That's “DuckTales” (2017).
Gay couple?
In “The Owl House,” two female characters develop a relationship slowly over time and eventually become an actual couple, with dancing, kissing and the whole deal.
Bi-racial family?
“American Dragon: Jake Long” did it in the 2000s.
Three-legged dog?
Even that was done before in “101 Dalmatians: The Series” in the 1990s and he was a more distinctive character.
While I was watching the movie, I didn't really know how I felt about it. It kept my interest the whole time. I think I would have liked it if they leaned more into the old-timey adventure serial feel it was setting up in the opening. I also would have rather hung around the cultural mash-up, retro-futuristic society of Avalonia a bit more.
It isn't terrible. There are some creative ideas, beautiful visuals, exciting action sequences and funny gags. Even when it comes to the preachy message, there are much preachier movies. I think it might be more memorable if it were terrible. Speaking of things I watched on Disney+, I loathed the “She-Hulk” series and I'll probably remember that more.
Movies like this will not be luring me back to the theater anytime soon.
My mom was watching with me and her review is in actions rather than words. A few scenes in, she left to wash the dishes instead.
28 Dec 2022, 5:19 am
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