Rating of
2.5/4
Worst Vacation Ever
Looneymanthegreat - wrote on 06/08/14
Escape from Tomorrow is a movie I respect more then I enjoy. The movie took a lot of hard work and care to make, because they had to go and film in Disney World and Disneyland with heavy equipment without getting caught. Writer/Director Randy Moore clearly believed in this movie a lot, and went to great lengths to get it made.
It really is a shame, knowing that this movie was made with so much passion and hard work, that it’s not that great. I wouldn’t call it bad, but there really aren’t enough ideas here to justify making a feature film. The first two thirds of the movie are pretty much just exposition setting up the bizarre surrealism of the third act; Nothing really happens for the first big chunk of the movie, and it becomes kind of grating after a while. The movies only 80 minutes long, but it feels much longer. All the stuff that was set-up during the beginning and middle of the movie could have been explained just as well in less then half the time, but then the movie would have been less then an hour long. What I’m saying is that the movies plot seems like it would do better in a short-film format, but instead it’s stretched out to meet full length criteria.
The movies central message is basically a direct criticism that Disney Parks have in the attitude they have when they market and themselves and the expectations they try a little too hard to meet when guests enter into that “World.” This is a good message; As much as people joke that Disney is evil, there really is something creepy in how they present themselves, especially their costumed characters. “You can’t be happy all the time,” is one of the most memorable lines from the movie, and it sums up Moore’s criticism of the Disney Company. Even the best vacation has bad parts, but the bad parts of life are part of what makes living life so exciting.
When Escape from Tomorrow actually gets going about 50 or so minutes in, it’s incredibly entertaining. It’s not so much scary as it entertainingly bizarre. Our protagonist, a drunken horny father of an average American family, faces a robotic scientist that works for the Siemens Corporation and an ex-Disney princess with a magical pendant and a penchant for kidnapping children. Basically it’s about the worst, oddest Disney world vacation ever.
Honestly I kind of like the movie better after I watched it then while I was watching it. The movies third act and message are spot on, but the majority of the flick is kind of excruciatingly boring. If you hate Disney World, love Disney World or even if you just feel like seeing a unique movie, this wouldn’t be a bad one to check out.
