If you were to think back to the times you’ve been wowed at the movies, there’s probably a common theme. Maybe it was the first herbivore in Jurassic Park, the T-1000 in Terminator 2: Judgment Day, maybe the arachnids in Starship Troopers. (Yes, we’re old here at ReelGood.) Chances are it wasn’t everything in the movie trying to wow you at once, but rather, a few cool things intermingled with a baseline of normal to awaken your sense of awe.

If everything in a movie is fantastical, then none of it feels fantastic. That’s the problem with Strange World, the new Disney movie that arrives in cinemas on not very much buzz, but a lot of hope that it might knock our socks off with its mysterious subterranean land where purple plants flower, and schools of undulating blobs swim through the sky. As hard as it’s trying to show us something new, Strange World has oodles of literary and cinematic forebears, everything from Jules Verne’s Journey to the Centre of the Earth, to the realm that spawned King Kong, to Avatar. Think of this as Avatar with a purplish pink hue rather than a bluish green one.

As wowed as we were by Avatar, though – and if James Cameron hasn’t finally miscalculated, as wowed as we may soon be by its sequel – the effect of the surface joys wears off quickly if it isn’t grounded by a compelling story. Strange World can’t find such a story, settling for musty tropes about sons who don’t want to be like their fathers, and fathers who can’t see that they’ve already become their own fathers that they didn’t want to be like. There’s a lot of sons resenting fathers here.

That Strange World can’t muster more interest is a shame, considering that it is the most progressive film ever to emerge from Disney. The central consummated relationship is an interracial marriage, the central unconsummated relationship is a teenage boy with a crush on another teenage boy, and the remaining characters are so equally divided from a representation standpoint that there’s hardly a cultural demographic repeated. If only as much energy had gone into writer Qui Nguyen’s script (he also co-directed with Don Hall), and if only the energy expended on visuals hadn’t been so dominated by that sickly pinkish purple that’s the stamp of lesser Dreamworks movies.

Jaeger and Searcher Clade (voices of Dennis Quaid and Jake Gyllenhaal) are a celebrated father-son exploring team from the land of Avalonia, the sort whose exploits are documented in pulp novels (with animation to match during those sequences). That’s only Jaegar’s actual passion, and on a quixotic quest to traverse the snowy mountains beyond Avalonia that have so far been impassable, Searcher makes a discovery that seems to have far more practical value: a plant whose energy can power a whole society. Calling it Pando, Searcher and the rest of the party turn back to research their find, while Jaeger and his giant moustache proceed onward, never to return.

Twenty-five years later, Searcher’s discovery has revolutionised Avalonia, his exploits immortalised in a statue right next to his father’s. He’s settled in as a farmer and is teaching his own son Ethan (voice of Jaboukie Young-White) how to carry on their family legacy. Of course, Ethan’s also fallen far from his father’s Pando tree and has a thirst for exploring, not unlike the grandfather he never met.

Ethan sneaks aboard the airship when Avalonian scientists detect a threat to the health of Pando, whose heart is buried deep in the earth. So Searcher, Ethan and a new party of accidental explorers are thrust into a land they never knew existed, to save the crop that has powered their society – and possibly to stumble across the not-so-dead Jaeger. Because this is Disney, of course the family dog is along for the ride, while a blue creature with smattering of blobby tendrils, who speaks in expressive bleeps, increases the sidekick count to two.

It’s hard to know what would qualify as a successful envisioning of a fantasy world in an era despoiled by the quantity and budgetary availability of good CGI. It’s no earth-shattering observation that the more we raise the bar for what we’re capable of achieving, visually, the less we care when we clear that bar. Of course in animation you can achieve anything, but the same principle is true as it is for live action. Dinosaurs composed of unlikely geometries, molluscs with locomotive tentacles, bluffs of floating trees, and skies of purple – oh so much purple – are clearly supposed to make us stop and gasp. If you get even one gasp out of Strange World you should count yourself lucky.

Which isn’t to call it a failure either. There are sturdy bones to Strange World from a narrative perspective – themes that are always useful to revisit, character dynamics that have stood the test of time. Young children viewing Strange World will of course be encountering some of these for the first time, even if jaded old film critics have seen them hundreds of times before. They don’t put a lump in your throat as Pixar would manage to do with the same material, and maybe Pixar wouldn’t use quite so much purple.

Of course, what no animation studio has done is given us a main character with a same gender love interest. In the moments where Ethan is mooning over his crush, Diazo (voice of Jonathan Melo), Nguyen throws in a few extra references to make sure the densest viewer doesn’t miss that this is actual flirtation – YES, THESE CHARACTERS ARE ACTUALLY GAY. Thankfully, there is also no character who finds this the least bit unusual, or worthy of any comment other than the normal level of teasing of a young person in love.

Unfortunately, what’s accomplished by this unimpeachable embrace of LGBTQ themes is diminished somewhat by the fact that Ethan’s sexual identity has nothing to do with the story. In fact, Diazo disappears for most of the movie, leaving his introduction feeling perfunctory, so Disney can proudly proclaim YES, THESE CHARACTERS ARE ACTUALLY GAY. That’s not to be cynical about Disney’s intentions, just that this isn’t ordinarily a story that would require Ethan to have a love interest at all. Given this, Nguyen could have at least had Diazo sneak aboard that airship alongside his prospective paramour.

Not viewing Strange World cynically and giving it a full-throated recommendation are two different things. The movie is overflowing with aspirations and best intentions – we haven’t even discussed its environmental message – but the result is a milquetoast affair. This movie lands somewhere very ordinary between too strange and not strange enough. One son yelling at his dad “I’m not you!”, and expecting that to qualify as an earth-shaking revelation, feels a lot more conventional than strange.

 

Strange World is currently playing in cinemas.