Tomorrowland (2015)

  This is the Christy pick for September.  I'm catching up!  Slowly.

Casey Newton (Britt Robertson) is a girl genius who is trying very hard to keep hope alive.  She receives a pin from a mysterious little girl (Raffey Cassidy) and every time she touches it, she sees a beautiful vision of the future.  While trying to track down information about the pin, she is attacked by killer robots (Kathryn Hahn and Keegan-Michael Key) and eventually ends up at the home of disillusioned inventor Frank Walker (George Clooney).  Frank is the last person who knows how to get to Tomorrowland but was unceremoniously exiled and has no desire to go back.  Casey must convince him to help her before the entire world is destroyed.

This was a much more obviously liberal film than I might have imagined.  It rests a lot on the idea that children are the future because they still care and that adults are just too mired down in depression and self-serving attitudes to notice that they are turning everything into a dystopian wasteland.  Sure, yes, it's hopeful but it's also predicating the salvation of the human race by moving all the geniuses to an alternate dimension we haven't fucked up yet.  I'm not sure that's any better of an idea than letting a plague loose and starting over from scratch.  The naivety here really soured what would have otherwise been a pleasantly empty experience.

Don't get me wrong.  I absolutely believe that we as a species should funnel more money into science and technology that helps fight poverty and hunger and that we should never stop trying to innovate and push the boundaries of what's possible.  But I am also resigned to the fact that most people are dumb, panicky animals who hate change and will do almost anything to maintain the status quo even against their own best interest.