Movie Review: Strange World (2022)
Credit: Disney
“Jake Gyllenhaal, Dennis Quaid, and Gabrielle Union star in Disney’s newest animated feature, but is Strange World one of Disney’s weakest? ”
A little bit of background about myself when it comes to film, I'm a sucker for a father-son story. Growing up and into the time he passed away, my father and I had a complicated relationship. So, when I see those stories that play on the tropes of the father who wasn't there (Ghostbusters: Afterlife), or the father redeeming himself (Star Wars [the original trilogy]), or the father protecting his family (Avatar: The Way of Water), I'm drawn in. Yet despite the fact that the bulk of Strange World’s story has to do with fathers and sons and finding one’s one legacy, this film failed to grab me, and it's really a story problem. Strange World has a story that (intends) to explore a rocky father-son relationship much akin to one of my favorite movies, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. But despite us being given a Strange World to explore, it definitely doesn’t live up the standards of an Indian Jones film.
I (like many I'm sure) watched Strange World on Disney+. With a 2-month-old and a 2-year-old, it goes without saying that making it to the movie theater is not an easy task. But I don’t believe Strange World would’ve saved by a theatrical experience.
Synopsis (Spoiler Free)
The story starts out simple enough: Jaeger Clade (Dennis Quaid – The Rookie (2002)) is a famous explorer, has a son, Searcher Clade (Gyllenhaal – Bubble Boy (2001)), who he drags along in his adventures exploring the world of Avalonia. Avalonia is surrounded by impenetrable mountains, and Jaeger (a total bad ass) wants to be the first to make it to the other side. Why? I have no idea. While Jaeger leads a treacherous expedition up the mountains, Searcher discovers plants that produce electricity that they call Pando. Jaeger and Searcher have a falling out because Jaeger (the explorer) wants to ignore the miracle plants to see what's on the other side of mountain, while Searcher makes it clear he doesn't have the same goals as his father. Jaeger presses on alone, while Searcher goes back to town with the magic electric plants and brings Avalonia into the future.
Fast forward 25 years, Searcher is running a Pando farm and is pushing his farming way of life on his son, Ethan (Jaboukie Young-White – Rough Night (2017).) Searcher is a generally good dad, but the obvious conflict is that his son Ethan appears to have the exploration itch inherited from his grandfather, while Searcher wants Ethan to continue his legacy of farming. When Ethan brings up Jaeger being proud of Searcher for what he's accomplished, Searchers scoffs and retorts, “clearly you don't know my dad.” Searcher has still not forgiven his father for leaving him and fears that Ethan will follow in his father’s footsteps and abandon him for some adventure.
The central issue in the story comes in the form of the Pando dying out around Avalonia. Callisto (Lucy Liu – Kill Bill (2003)) is a former associate of Jaeger, now president of Avalonia, and comes to Searcher requesting that he join her to solve the mystery of the dying Pando.
Pando turns out to be one giant organism with interconnected roots. The plan is to follow the roots to the source of the problem. The roots lead to a giant hole of unknown depth. The hole leads the adventurers to a “Strange World”, miles beneath their own with all manner of strange creatures.
Ethan stows away on Callisto's ship because he wants to help Searcher find the fix to the Pando. Meridian (Gabrielle Union – Bad Boys II (2003)), Searcher's wife, catches up to Callisto’s ship and joins the party after discovering that Ethan had stowed away. Immediately after this family reunion, the party's ship is attacked by flying monsters. Searcher falls off the ship, Meridian takes control of Callisto’s ship because apparently, she can fly anything, and Ethan defies Callisto’s and Meridian’s orders to try and find his father.
While trying to get back to the ship, Searcher coincidentally meets up with his father who has been stuck in this Strange World for the last 25 years. Ethan starts to befriend a blue blob and seems interested in the local fauna. Action ensues as the local wildlife attacks the Clades, all are reunited on the ship, and they venture on trying to discover what's killing the Pando.
Review (Spoilers)
It becomes apparent very quickly what we're dealing with in Strange World. The flora and fauna are very resemblant of the organelles of a living creature. There are flowing herds of red floating organisms (blood), one area has pinkish plants that seem to shrink and expand in rhythm (alveoli of the lungs) and whitish blobby creatures attempting to kill the foreign invaders (white blood cells). Interestingly, the party discovers the most effective weapon against the local fauna is the Pando. Throwing these Pando beans at the creatures electrocutes them. This is very telling, yet the party doesn’t seems to think much of it at first.
In the end, the party discovers that their whole society is simply riding on the back of giant turtle in the middle of an ocean. (Think Last Airbender's massive lion-turtle island.) The turtle's immune response turns out to be responsible for the damage to the Pando. The Pando is an infection, slowly killing the turtle, so the turtle's natural immune response (monsters) is fighting against the Pando, even though the Pando is fighting off the turtle's immune response.
There comes a point in the film where the party comes to a crossroads. Searcher (who finally sees the turtle head on the other side of the mountains) understands that their world will likely die if they don't help the turtle's immune response kill the Pando, but Callisto doesn't believe him and wants to kill off the immune response to save the Pando. Good triumphs in the end, the turtle is saved, and Pando is gone. Avalonia is now forced headfirst into the dark ages... That's it. It ends. Society goes forward without power despite having electricity and flying cars for the past 25 years.
After the Pando is destroyed, fast forward one year later and the people of Avalonia are happily lighting candles in the dark and they are now generating power from some sort of wind-powered flying machine. (I’m sure there were no issues from the Pando instantaneously shutting down across Avalonia without warning for a year.)
Issues
I take a lot of issues with this movie because little to no work is done to explain the character motivations. The idea is there, a story of a father and son that don’t see eye to eye, yet the son ends up repeating the same mistakes of his father. It is cliched and should be easy to convey, but it’s difficult for the audience to sympathize with the characters because they just don't make sense in a lot of way. Let's start with Searcher.
There is a single throw away clip from a 2D animated montage that shows Searcher is interested in plants. But there forward it’s just established he's a farmer despite the fact he’s been exploring the world with his dad for seemingly his entire life. It's clear that Jaeger and Searcher aren't the same person, but the story would be greatly benefitted from a flashback or two showing young Searcher being interested in plants, studying agriculture (maybe with his mother) and making it more obvious that he's a farmer at heart. There's nothing in the film that gives any credibility to Searcher as being an expert farmer or botanist, except for the fact he (1) discovered the Pando and (2) farms it. It would be much better story telling if there was even just a passing shot of a PhD in his house for botany. Otherwise, Searcher is just a dude who hung around his dad, discovered a plant, and at some point said, “this is my life now.” This is a hard pill to swallow given the intro to movie gives no time and no context for the motivations of the characters other than Jaeger himself who is seemingly obsessed with getting to the other side of the mountains.
Jaeger's whole goal through the entire film is to make it to the other side of the mountain. He claims it’s for, "the future of Avalonia!" But what do they expect to find? The film attempts to establish that he's a bad ass because he's given an Indiana Jones-esque montage with a song at the beginning of the movie, but it's not clear what exactly he did to earn his reputation aside from fighting wild animals. He literally drags his son with him to uncharted lands without a real care for his safety. But what else did he find? It’s not clear. I just don't understand his goals and therefore motivations because his goals can be summed up as I’ve already described as, “getting to the other side of the mountains.” As an explorer, finding a new species of plant or an animal would be huge! But Jaeger sees the Pando, an electricity producing plant and says, "we're not gardeners." Jaeger would've benefitted from fleshing out what exactly gives him credibility as an explorer. What did he find? What does he think is on the other side of the mountains that will change the world? Whatever it was, it was enough for him to turn his back on the son who has been traveling with him for years (as well as his wife).
I don’t have much issue with Ethan as a character. He knows that he doesn’t want to be a farmer his whole life, and seemingly wants to explore like his grandfather before him. Throughout the film, he tries his best to befriend the local fauna and seemingly wants to understand this world and how it functions. Ethan sort of bridges the gap between Searcher and Jaeger in that he has his own definition of what he wants his legacy to be. Ethan wants to explore to learn more about this giant turtle and the symbiotic relationship between the strange creatures within it. I think the major problem with this film is the fact that there’s truly only one character who wishes to understand the world that exists beneath their own, and that’s Ethan. Jaeger has been in the Strange World for 25 years and is only interested in getting to the otherside of the mountain. Searcher is totally disinterested in the world itself, and only seems to care about getting the Pando healthy again. It doesn’t really make sense given the incredible scientific discoveries they happened upon.
When I saw the trailer for Strange World at D23, it looked impressive. A "Strange World" with strange creatures and plants for our heroes to explore. This is a film that can live on its world building alone. Look at Star Wars. Even if you don't like Lucas' dialogue, you can easily fall in love with the alien planets and creatures. Strange World doesn't do a good enough job building Avalonia for the audience to understand what exactly the scope of Avalonia is. When I walked into this film, I thought Avalonia was a planet like earth, vast. But with a two-minute montage at the beginning of the film, we're told the mountains are so massive that the characters' entire world of Avalonia exists in a valley. But even with that knowledge, it isn’t clear that the whole world is Avalonia. It sort of breaks my immersion into the world since there’s not enough exposition or subtext to indicate that this little valley is the whole world.
Furthermore, all stories need some sort of conflict. Show me the issues the Avalonians have with power and with infrastructure due to the mountains. Show me the reason why we need explorers trying to get to the other side. Or give me more Jaeger so I can understand his motivations. Is there something he’s trying to solve, or is he just after the fortune and glory of finding something? Without some conflict or better world building, Avalonia is just a boring valley (like where I'm from...)
As I mentioned before, even when the characters take us to the Strange World, it doesn't seem important. They don't explore, examine, or investigate anything. They just push through to the end of the movie. No ideas are issued regarding the relationship between the plants and creatures they encounter, there’s just a foreshadowing from Ethan about working with the environment while the Clades play a Settlers of Catan knock off. I just wished the characters showed a bit more interest in their world or the Strange World so that the audience could care. There’s lots of running from monsters in the movie, but who/what are these monsters?
One of the largest issues I have with this movie is that nearly everyone has the power of flight. The potency of the Pando is enough to give people flying cars, planes and massive ships. Yet the audience is expected to believe that in the 25 years that they've had the Pando, no one has developed a ship to fly up high? Like higher than the mountains? Avalonia's most famous explorer has a statue erected because he seemingly gave his life to find the other side of the mountain. This is something we're meant to believe is important to Avalonia. Therefore, it's totally unbelievable that a society capable of all sorts of different flying/hovering vehicles couldn't figure out how to go up... Also, the Pando is found in the snow. Why so far up? That seems so far away from the heart of the turtle and unlikely to grow there. How does it grow in normal soil and snow? Maybe because it's an interconnected organism. But that doesn't explain how it's farmed and cultivated in these vastly different environments. Those roots would have had to take hold.
Another issue is the other characters in the film. There’s a mention of Searcher’s mom who makes a brief appearance, there’s Callisto (president of Avalonia), and then there’s Callisto’s crew. I’m not naming the crew because they are ultimately entirely unimportant to the plot of the movie. You could erase all of the characters except for Ethan, Searcher, and Jaeger, and this movie is still the same. I think it says a lot about a movie when the side characters serve no role in supporting the greater plot of the story. If you’re just taking up space, then why are you here at all?
Near the end of the movie, Searcher and Ethan figure out that the Pando is bad. It is actively killing the turtle that Avalonia exists upon. The Pando is dying because, as previously mentioned, the turtle's immune response is fighting back. When the party reaches the heart of the Pando which is infecting the heart of the turtle, the first thought is to kill the monsters killing the Pando. Searcher and Ethan discover they're on the back of a giant turtle and now attempt to explain to Callisto (party leader) that it's the Pando that is bad and we have to save the turtle. Callisto doesn't believe a word either of them say (despite Searcher literally devoting his entire life to the Pando) and locks them in a closet. The audience is expected to believe that despite no one having a single clue about what is happening, and despite the fact Callisto literally brought Searcher along because she respects his skills or bloodline or something, that she wouldn't listen to him or at least discuss the possibilities of what they're dealing with. This doesn't work for me.
On the flip side of the argument, the film established that for some 25 years, Avalonian society has relied upon Pando as it's primary (likely only) energy source. We don’t see any hydroelectric plants, solar farms, windmills, or any other means of generating electricity until the Pando arrived. And we're expected to believe to that it didn't strike Searcher as an issue that destroying the world's supply of Pando might need a couple seconds of thought? I think what makes the ending lack luster is that the stakes are never clear in this movie. In the beginning we're told the Pando is dying and will all die off in a month. The decay is only shown with a throwaway line between Searcher and Meridian about some bad Pando pods that died out after about an hour, and then Callisto shows Searcher a dead Pando plant. The conflict here would be much more effective if we saw society struggling with a power shortage or show the issues from the citizens having to deal with unstable Pando power. The film that did this more effectively was Monsters, Inc. But Strange World doesn’t even address the greater issues potentially at stake.
Then we get to the heart of the turtle. The crew follows the Pando’s root to the heart of the Pando that has attached itself to the heart of the turtle. It’s not clear that we are dealing with the heart of the turtle, even after they figure out they're inside of a turtle, the heart isn't beating or giving off any sort of indication that the Pando is killing the turtle’s heart. We don't truly know it's the turtle heart until after they kill the Pando and the heart comes back to life thanks to the walking ex machina that instantly rebuilds it and restarts the beating. But we're never really clear on just how dire the situation is. Once again, the issue is world building. We needed Ethan exploring and coming to the conclusion that this place was alive a lot earlier in the film so that we can see that there’s going to be huge issue if the crew fails to save the heart of the giant turtle. The conflict isn’t built leading up to this point and the filmmakers missed out on a great opportunity to explore the ramifications of the choice that must be made between saving the Pando or saving the world.
Moana nailed this premise of her world dying out to rot. We’re given the same exact idea, go to this place to fix the rot or else we're all doomed. But in Moana, who similarly lived on an island, we are clear about how society operates and what’s at stake if the rot isn't stopped. Strange World fails because the audience can't care about what's happening because we don't know how badly society will be harmed if the Pando is removed, or really what will happen if the turtle dies. There is a distinct lack of conflict that makes this movie boring. And that includes the conflict between characters.
Final Verdict
I think we have an entirely different experience if this was a Disney+ show as opposed to a single movie. We are given no time to understand the characters. We don't know just how bad Searcher and Jaeger's relationship is, we don't know that Searcher loves plants until he finds one, we don't know Jaeger's motivation to get to the other side of the mountains, and the world of Avalonia seemingly consists of a single town and Searcher's farm. The conflict between Searcher and Jaeger which is foiled by Searcher and Ethan is shallow. I'm this film's target audience (a father with daddy issues) and it let ME down! Searcher and Jaeger's relationship in the film consists of a 2-minute montage of him following his dad everywhere, getting to the top of the mountain and saying, "I'm not you, dad!" That's cheap. Build me the relationship and just how bad it was through exposition and subtext. This relationship between Jaeger and Searcher is the whole movie, but the filmmakers failed to execute it.
Personally, I don't think would be too hard to fix this film, but it would require at the very least another 30 minutes of runtime. The anchor of the movie is a story of fathers and sons and their legacy. Give me more Jaeger and Searcher. Give me more butting heads. Give me a Searcher who's a nerdy flower-loving weakling, and a head strong Jaeger who is driven to solve Avalonia's crumbling infrastructure by finding new lands to cultivate and expand. Give me conflict. This movie fails because it feels so rushed. The whole point of this movie is the Strange World, but no one really takes the time to explore and understand what the hell this Strange World is until the very end of the movie.
There are positives in this movie. I enjoyed Meridian’s character because she is a believable fun mom. And I enjoyed their three-legged dog, Legend. Some of the monsters’ designs are cool and I like how they serve as the cells and organelles of the giant turtle. But other than that, this film was about two people, Searcher and Jaeger, their relationship was supposed to be explored through Ethan finding his own legacy, but the lack of character backgrounds, motivations, and world building leaves the story flat. At the end of the day, this isn’t a horrible movie, but it is one of Disney’s weakest. On a scale from 1 to 10, with 5 being completely average, this film falls below-average due to the weak writing. I don’t care what this film looks like if the plot is mediocre and not well threshed out.
Final Verdict: 4/10
