There’s a problem with jetpacks. They suck up a lot of fuel, aren’t really all that useful, and only work for one person at a time. The jetpack should join the flying car and food in a pill on the pile of poorly thought out visions of the future. But it’s exactly that stupid future that so enamors Tomorrowland. A direct rebuttal to the nihilistic futures of young adult (YA) dystopias, Tomorrowland is a message movie that never quite figured itself out past the slogan. But that may not be such a bad thing.

Tomorrowland is about Casey, a brilliant young woman who spends her nights sabotaging NASA’s efforts to dismantle their launch platforms. Soon she’s joined by Athena (Raffey Cassidy) and Frank (George Clooney), two former Tomorrowland residents, to reenter the fabled city and, uh, fix what’s wrong with it. It’s hard to describe much more, since Tomorrowland relies on a breadcrumb plot that slowly reveals what the city of Tomorrowland is all about and where it went bad.

Tomorrowland Trailer

The plot of Tomorrowland is a curiously disjointed thing, with a sense of mystery soon crumbling into an exasperating feeling of “Why the hell won’t these characters from Tomorrowland just be straight with us?”

The path to Tomorrowland itself involves a whole lot of busy work that’s invigorating enough that it’s hard to mind too much. There are all sorts of teleportation and rocket doo-dads, not to mention some fantastic evil robot agents who need killing in various elaborate ways (for all its optimism, Tomorrowland constantly falls back on violence to keep our interest… I’m not complaining).

Then we get to Tomorrowland. For unexplained reasons it’s kind of a rundown dump. The rest of the movie is spent on a single--admittedly spectacular--set, just when it really needed to give us all the unfettered science fiction goodies promised in our earlier glimpses of the fabled Tomorrowland city.

The Tomorrowland Elephant in the Room - Damon Lindelof

I suspect our readers are exactly the kind of young nerds who already know to bristle when I whisper “Damon Lindelof” in the same tone reserved for Voldemort. From Aliens to Star Trek, he’s become famous for wrapping his hands around beloved series and throttling everything good out of them. And indeed much of the problems with Tomorrowland are script problems.

It’s the script’s fault, for example, that the Tomorrowland bad guy is a non-entity until he suddenly shows up and spouts an elaborate and silly villain motivation.

George Clooney is the worst part of Tomorrowland and that’s the script’s fault too. Tomorrowland becomes far too enamored with Clooney’s Frank. Clooney is basically playing an old man who never got over a tween crush, and it’s baffling how much of Tomorrowland is dedicated to his whiny emotional arc.

Tomorrowland even suffers a bit on a dialogue level. I saw Tomorrowland in an immense amphitheater full of kids and it was astounding how many obvious laugh lines were met with utter silence. Not that Tomorrowland isn’t funny, but it relies far more on slapstick, good timing, and exceptional character chemistry than it does wit (there’s a great burp joke).

Here’s the thing, though: Tomorrowland is the best Lindelof movie. It’s as scattershot and poorly structured as most of what he’s written, but it feels far, far less damaging in a kid’s movie context. Sure, Tomorrowland doesn’t run like a Swiss watch, but neither does plenty of now-classic kid’s movies (I’m looking at you The Goonies and The NeverEnding Story).

Tomorrowland survives Damon Lindelof (mostly).

Tomorrowland, Secretly Good?

For all of the myriad faults in Tomorrowland, it genuinely feels like a movie that will speak to a goodly chunk of the audience. Britt Robertson’s Casey is one of the best heroes Disney has ever put on screen. She’s given some mawkish, eye-rolling things to say, but absolutely sells every bit of it.

Just as much congratulations are in order for director Brad Bird, who fills the screen with visual gags and tech lunacy, but never loses sight of character. Both impulses are perfectly embodied in Raffey Cassidy’s Athena. If you’ve ever wanted to see a 14-year-old girl decapitate a robot, Tomorrowland is your movie.

Tomorrowland has a can-do attitude about it that’s hard not to find charming, but actually stopping to think about Tomorrowland’s version of scientific optimism can be dangerous.

Is Tomorrowland’s origin as a place where super scientists could get away from “politics” and “bureaucracy” a declaration of libertarian principles? Probably, but comparing the very humanist libertarianism of Tomorrowland to Ayn Rand, as many reviewers have done, feels petty and wrong.

Is our dystopian fixation really a lack of scientific optimism, or a loss of faith in political and economic institutions? Tomorrowland doesn’t care to ask. There are a dozen ways to cut into Tomorrowland’s essential optimism. It’s even possible to imagine its simplicity as cynicism.

But that would be a mistake.

If Tomorrowland puts awe in the hearts of young girls and boys, then it has succeeded. Make no mistake, Tomorrowland is a flawed and at times aggravating movie for an adult to sit through, but even a cynic will experience moments of wonder and glee. Tomorrowland will force a parable down your eardrums (you’ll know it when you hear it), but during at least one of those all too preachy reiterations it’s possible to feel something. And while Tomorrowland is flawed, it is oh-so genuine. This is not Disney cynically plumping a popcorn time-waster with feeling. Tomorrowland is about feeling, and while the expression is sloppy, it’s hard to miss the beating heart behind it.

I may not have loved Tomorrowland, but it feels certain to be a movie that at least a few future adults will look back on as formative.