Strange World

Disney has been taken over by incompetence it seems. There's no story or creativity here. I realize not every film is going to be fantastic but this must not have been screened anywhere. I'm not even sure it should have been released on streaming because it essentially devalues the subscription. Everything was forced. I should say something nice about it so I'll say the voice acting was okay. Now they just need to hire some writers. My kids and I gave up halfway through. They were excited to see a new movie available, but I didn't read the reviews beforehand. A lesson I won't soon forget. I bet soon you'll be able to take the synopsis and hand it to AI and get a better result than what they came up with here.

Ehhh pretty generic and meh. Didn't feel much for the characters emotionally and the movie wasn't that funny. The Strange World stuff wasn't really anything I hadn't already seen before. Where the plot goes at the end thinks it's more clever than it actually is. I was underwhelmed by the entire execution.

At the end of the day, this is very weak by Modern Disney standards. It's an easy watch and the animation is decent in places, as well as the music, but overall I'm not going to remember much from it that I had already seen these premises/concepts done in movies before. A Mediocre World is what it is.

5/10.

Interesting. A bit of a self-fulfilment by Disney here, in my opinion. "Strange World" has flopped quite badly at the box office, mostly I suspect due to a lack of promotion - the film was in the cinema before I'd even heard of it. You have to wonder though if that lack of promotion was because the company lost faith with a movie that struggles to shake off the idea that it's all a bit second rate.

Searcher Clade (Jake Gyllenhaal), son of the legendary explorer Jaeger Clade (Dennis Quaid) returns from an aborted expedition without his father, who continues on alone, but with a mysterious plant that can generate electricity. Decades later, with Searcher now a husband and father, he's tasked with another expedition, to work out why his miracle discovery is started to die. His new mission, undertaken with some of his father's old crew, follows the plants to their root and discover an undiscovered land, with odd creatures.

So, there are some positives to it. The vocal performances are good. The visuals are, to a point good. The creatures I found to be a bit bland, but there is an explanation within the story as to why they look the way they do. There are a few funny moments along the way. The environmental aspect of the story is worthy and some of that came as a pleasant surprise.

But it has to be said that the rest of the plot is pretty underwhelming. It's a pedestrian adventure once we're underground and, though there are a couple of surprises that you will certainly see coming, there's not really an action scene to really get the heart racing.

I've had a patchy time with Disney's own animated releases over the past few years, with "Encanto" being much better than "Raya and the Last Dragon" and with "Strange World" closer to the latter than the former. I'm more forgiving of this than I might be, as we watched it on Disney Plus and my son enjoyed it, than I would be had I been to the cinema.

I honestly don't get all the hate for this movie, I thoroughly enjoyed it. It's definitely not fantastic but it's not terrible neither, it's a better effort from Disney compared to recent outings. Yes the characters aren't as well developed as they could have been, the story is just a rehash of everything that's been done before, the ideas don't really go anywhere, and certain situations just conveniently resolve themselves without much effort. But what did you expect from Disney these days? Just turn off your brain and keep expectations low and you'll find there's a lot to like; I love the Star Trek vibe, the creatures in the strange world were pretty cool, the blue blob was a lot of fun, the three-legged dog was awesome, I'm not sure why he was there and why he had to be three-legged but what the heck, he's a good boy! Just like the movie, it's flawed and you're not sure why it's there, but it's enjoyable.

... and while I think they did a great job building a world, with a lot of cool recombinations of old sci-fi concepts, the actual characters don't feel at all well sketched out and the themes and plot are remarkably thin. Like it's an okay film but it's a bit below the normal standards of Disney Animation.

The dialogue is definitely too much on the nose, and it feels pitched a little too young for what they're going for.

The main character arc of the movie is reminiscent of (and far inferior to) Mitchells vs The Machines to me, which can't be a great help. Not saying that there can only be one "quirky teen has strained relationship with father" movie but it's definitely a detriment when I'm thinking about a film that does that much better and with a whole lot more emotional complexity and heart while watching this.

Also, does anyone else feel like the sheer quantity of movies that are coming out right now that are about intergenerational trauma is getting a bit tiresome?

The environmental message is fine, but honestly it's mildly horrifying how culturally we're already at the point where kids movies are pitching "you should be willing to accept a much lower standard of living to save the planet." Not totally this movies fault, but that is where we are.

The opening sequence is really nice though, I'll say that.