Have you ever sat down to watch a movie that looks absolutely amazing on your screen, but the actual story just leaves you feeling kind of empty? That is exactly how I felt after finishing Disney’s Strange World (2022. On one hand, the animation team did an incredible job making everything super colorful, wild, and crazy to look at. But on the other hand, the deep family drama they tried to build is just something i have all seen a million times before in other movies. Because it is a Disney movie, you expect a certain level of magic, but this one misses the mark a bit. Let me break down what makes this movie worth watching for the art alone, and where it totally goes wrong with the script.
CAST & CREDITS
Directors: Don Hall, Qui Nguyen Released: 2022 Voice Actors: Jake Gyllenhaal, Dennis Quaid, Jaboukie Young-White, Gabrielle Union, Lucy Liu
MY DATAILED PLOT
The entire story takes place in a fictional, isolated town called Avalonia, This community has a major geographical problem because it is completely locked inside a giant, ring-shaped wall of mountains that no one can climb over. Right at the beginning, I saw a famous explorer named Jaeger CladeHe is absolutely obsessed with finding out what is on the other side of those snowy peaks. He drags his teenage son, Searcher, into the wilderness with him. During this rough journey, Searcher accidentally discovers a strange, glowing green plant that seems to pulse with raw electrical energy. Searcher thinks they should stop climbing and take this miracle plant back home to help their people. Jaeger, who only cares about legacy and physical exploration, gets angry. They have a massive father and son argument right there in the snow. Jaeger decides to abandon the group and walks off alone into the blizzard. He disappears completely, and nobody sees him again for decades. For me personally I think Jaeger ii's right, because they went to the expedition in search of what is at the peaku side of the mountain, not for the flowers.
Now we cut to 25 years later. Searcher is grown up, married to a pilot named Meridian, and has a teenage son named Ethan. Searcher is now a very famous and successful farmer because he managed to cultivate that green plant, which everyone now calls Pando. Pando has completely revolutionized their entire civilization. It runs their cars, lights up their homes, and powers all their cool retro technology.mI,wish we could have that in Nigeria 😅.
TRAILER
But a huge crisis hits out of nowhere. The Pando crops across the entire country start dying from an underground sickness. The leader of Avalonia, a woman named Callisto Mal, shows up at Searcher’s farm in a giant, high-tech airship called the Venture. She tells Searcher that he is the only one who understands the plant well enough to help find a cure. Searcher reluctantly leaves his farm and boards the ship to travel down into a massive, newly discovered sinkhole in the ground. He thinks it is just a quick science mission, but things quickly go wrong. His son Ethan stows away on the ship because he wants adventure, and his wife Meridian has to chase after them in her weird plane when flying monsters attack the main airship. The ship crashes deep underground, and Searcher gets separated from everyone else. While running for his life from dangerous, kind of creatures, he gets saved by a wild, bearded old man. Surprise! It is his long-lost dad, Jaeger, who has been living in this underground world for 25 years trying to find a way back up.
MY HONEST THOUGHTS & CRITIQUE
Let me talk about the absolute best thing about this film, which is the visual design. I think the directors did not just make a regular underground world with gray rocks, dark mud, or brown dirt. Instead, they created a living, breathing ecosystem that looks like a lava lamp or an old days comic book. Everything feels soft, and completely alien. There are literal schools of fish-like creatures swimming through the open air, trees that can physically walk around, and giant fields of pink grass. Visually, it is a total masterpiece, and you can tell the animation team had a blast throwing out the rules of normal nature.
Another huge positive for me was the sidekick characters. Ethan befriends a weird, faceless blue monster that he names Splat. Splat cannot speak, but he uses hilarious body language to communicate, which adds a lot of fun physical comedy to the slower parts of the journey. They also brought along a three legged farm dog named Legend. Legend is just a happy, dog who constantly gets in the way but keeps the mood light. I also really want to give Disney praise for how they handled Ethan's character. He is a teenager who clearly has a big crush on another boy from his hometown. What I loved is that the movie does not treat this like a massive, dramatic plot point or a forced lesson. His dad and his granddad both completely support him and even give him normal, embarrassing dating advice. It felt incredibly natural and realistic for a modern family.
But now I have to talk about where the movie really starts to drag. The script relies way too much on the characters constantly explaining their feelings out loud. The entire second act of the film basically consists of the characters walking through a beautiful landscape, getting attacked by a monster, and then stopping to have a ten-minute argument about family expectations. Jaeger is mad that Searcher became a boring farmer. Searcher is mad at Jaeger for abandoning him. Meanwhile, Searcher is accidentally putting pressure on Ethan to stay on the farm, while Ethan secretly wants to explore the underground world. It is a good message about breaking generational trauma, but they hit you over the head with it so many times that you just want them to stop talking and keep moving.
To make matters worse, there is no real villain in the story. Without a bad guy to fight against, I would love 5o see if there was a villain, because am an Action lover, the stakes feel very low for a long time. Eventually, they discover a massive plot twist Avalonia is actually sitting on the back of a giant, living sea creature. The Pando plant that they love so much is actually an invasive infection that is slowly killing the giant creature's heart. While this environmental twist is a really cool concept, it turns the final third of the movie into a bit of a loud, preachy science lesson about saving the planet. The family has to quickly shift gears, team up, and destroy the Pando roots to save the giant beast, which means Avalonia has to give up their easy electricity and switch to wind power instead.
At the end of the day, Strange World is a decent watch if you just want to sit back, relax, and look at some of the most creative animation Disney has put out in years. Young kids will definitely fall in love with Splat and the dog, but adults might find themselves checking their phones because the repetitive family arguments get a bit tiresome.
Rating: 65/100
