Tomorrowland **
Dir: Brad Bird
Starring: George Clooney, Hugh Laurie, Britt Robertson, Raffey Cassidy, Tim McGraw, Kathryn Hahn, Keegan-Michael Key, Thomas Robinson.

Brad Bird has a pretty terrific record as a director. His three animated movies (The Incredibles, Ratatouille, The Iron Giant) are standouts of the genre and his prior sole live-action feature, Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol was a solid entry in the Tom Cruise spy thriller franchise. So it’s a pity - and a surprising one at that – that his latest is such a mess, well-meaning though it may be.

Bird and co-writer Damon Lindelof have a message for us. The reason why our world is in such a mess is because we have fallen prey to cynicism and a self-fulfilling prophecy of doom. Things would improve if only we believed - believed in a brighter future and a better tomorrow. Simplistic, yes, but simplistic doesn’t necessarily mean silly or unconvincing. After all Frank Capra made us believe in his simple messages (I just happened to have been watching  – again – the master’s classic Meet John Doe a few days prior to seeing Tomorrowland and how wonderfully does he sell us his simple tale of the strength of the common man and the power of neighbourly love). The movie also has some spectacular set-pieces and special effects. The problem is that Tomorrowland has huge, gaping plot holes as the story moves between different eras (the movie begins in 1964 and then jumps to the present) before crossing over into different dimensions/alternate futures. The story makes no sense and so the message falls flat.

George Clooney as the cynical inventor Frank Walker and Britt Robertson as Casey the irrepressible teenager who jolts Frank out of his ennui are fairly adequate but the best performance comes from Raffey Cassidy, the impenetrable 12-year old girl with a secret and a British accent. But no performance could have overcome the deficiencies of the plotting.

Cut to chase: Plot holes galore sink this one.

Fourteen years after the last entry in the series (Jurassic Park III) comes Jurassic World, the fourth movie in the Steven Spielberg led franchise about ravenous, angry dinosaurs wreaking havoc. Like many big summer blockbusters characterisation isn’t the main concern here - most of the actors here are playing types rather than real people. Chris Pratt (very good and reaffirming his new leading man status after the humongous success of The Guardians Of The Galaxy) is the standard wise-cracking he-man who can tackle any situation; Bryce Dallas Howard is the typical plucky heroine who rediscovers both her resourcefulness and her femininity while exchanging flirtatious repartee with the leading man while running around in the highest of heels; Jake Johnson is the typical everyman representing all of us; Vincent D’Onofrio is the scheming, preening military guy with a secretive agenda of his own and Irrfan Khan is the vain glorious billionaire who doesn’t realise what trouble his ego is going to get him into. So, multi-layered characters are certainly not what the movie is relying on. And the plotting is iffy, at best, sacrificing logic at the altar of expedience.

So the movie is going to live and die by its action sequences and its special effects. Director Colin Trevorrow (handpicked by Spielberg himself for the assignment) doesn’t really bring us anything really new or surprising and the big, bad monster (the genetically modified Indominus Rex) isn’t really that much more terrifying than the standard T-Rex but at various points the pulse does start racing and the special effects are pretty nifty. Overall, while it could have had more teeth and more bite, Jurassic World does its job (just about) as a summer popcorn flick.

I have one question, though. What happened to the pterodactyls?

Cut to chase: Not much new here but done well enough.

Kmumtaz1@hotmail.com; Twitter: @KhusroMumtaz