The film takes its title from the future-focused section of Disneyland that was built in 1955.

    It opens with George Clooney as Frank Walker telling us, “When I was a kid, the future was different,” whereupon we see his young self (Thomas Robinson) enthusiastically taking his homemade “jet pack” invention (actually a modified Electrolux vacuum cleaner) to the World’s Fair. His creation needs more time in the lab, but while there he meets a British-accented girl about his own age named Athena (Raffey Cassidy), who will soon lead him into a very privileged realm.

    Forty-five years later, a slightly older teenager, Casey Newton (Britt Robertson), also has fantasies* about flying and the future; she’s obsessed* with a Texas NASA rocket launch site that is now being taken down, a place where her unemployed* father (Tim McGraw) was once an engineer. Her toy drone* isn’t going to take her anywhere, but she mysteriously* gets something else that does: a small pin with a big “T” on it that, when touched, takes her to a beautiful wheat field from which she can see an extraordinary city in the distance.

    What lies before her is the future. But she can walk around the spotlessly modernistic buildings, observe the civilized people who live there and marvel at* their perfect world.

    Unfortunately, Newton doesn’t understand how to control her access in and out of this wonder world, so she’s bounced back to Houston, where she is in some kind of mild danger involving, first, some vintage* toy shop owners, and then some Matrix-like robot policemen who come after her as well as Clooney’s Walker. He explains things to Newton and enables her final access to the heart of Tomorrowland and its mysteries.

    At first he tells the girl to forget all about it. “What you saw is gone,” he says. But he finally can’t help but see his younger self in her, as his optimistic* side is re-animated by this kid’s excitement over what the future still could become.

    For a sci-fi/fantasy film, “Tomorrowland” is a surprise that places far more emphasis on talk than action.

    (SD-Agencies)