I just saw Tomorrowland yesterday.  This is a statement where the tense is correct but your brain pauses and says, “Wait, what?”

The movie has become one of my must-haves as far as DVD/Bluray.  Yes, it was that good.  In Tomorrowland, they’ve built a movie which manages to look at the future in a way that is both critical and optimistic.  It’s highly entertaining, with the main character being both humorous and inspiring.

Why is it so good?  Because the main character challenges everything.  When confronted with harsh reality, she challenges people to make it better.  When offered literally no hope, she refuses to believe that there is no hope.  She takes on the hopelessness and nihilism that society seems to have buckled under and her very energy and drive makes it clear how silly we are to have given up already.  She’s challenging the other characters in the movie, but she’s also managing to challenge the audience: don’t give up hope, don’t stop dreaming about a better world.

Does Tomorrowland have flaws?  Of course it does, but it was enjoyable enough that I didn’t care.  This was a movie that after you leave the theater, you want to talk about with your friends.  There were a ton of details with homages and references and it’s a movie that my wife and I spent hours discussing.  It’s a movie that was able to simultaneously represent hope for the future and still fit in a cautionary tale… one which doesn’t bludgeon you over the head with messages and themes, but instead invites you to set back and enjoy the ride.