I don’t think anyone can deny just how wildly under-hyped and under-marketed Strange World actually was. It seemed as though Disney did not care that they sunk millions into creating a new film and decided to just try and throw it away under the radar. Which is a shame because this movie isn’t actually even bad. Which is why it is baffling that Disney decided it wasn’t worth it to even try and make money. Maybe they thought the film would flop? Maybe they didn’t want to create controversy over their first “gay main character” in a Disney film (a non-issue in this film that seemed to generate some headlines prior to release). In any matter, Strange World gives us a solid entry in the Disney lineup of modern animated films, albeit not perfect.
The film follows the Clade Family, a family of former explorers and adventurers turned farmers when Searcher Clade (Jake Gyllenhaal) discovers a plant that provides electricity for their entire city. When they start having issues with the plant’s power generation, Searcher and his family go on an adventure to find out why and try to help reverse the damage to their energy system.
It’s hard to begin talking about any Disney animated feature without first mentioning the animation style and CGI improvements that we have seen so steadily in recent years. I am happy to say that this trend continues in Strange World. It’s apparent from the opening scene just how gorgeous everything looks in this film. The film certainly doesn’t look real, but it’s not supposed to be here, what we get instead is a beautifully crafted world that looks and feels living and believable, and it blows my mind just how far CGI and Disney animation has come. On top of that, I felt the film actually did a great job of building a believable world in terms of storytelling as well. Strange World brings us a completely new concept for the world it resides in. Between great creature designs and a wonderful concept to ground us in the reality of the film, I was really impressed with how much care was given to the world.
On the other hand, while the setting and the CGI felt really good, it seemed the overarching story was lacking in its development. Throughout the film, there were a number of cookie cutter movie tropes that seemed to fill in gaps within the story and artificially create plot lines to extend the films runtime when there didn’t need to be. With that, it seemed that the plot lines they introduced were seemingly resolved extremely quickly and then moved on to the next thing. As such, the movie felt both incredibly rushed and slow at the same time, and I think that detracted from the overall movie experience greatly. On top of that, the acting in this film was just solid, nothing too memorable and nothing that really felt bad, but it left me feeling just indifferent.
Final Thoughts
Strange World sits in a strange spot in Disney’s library of history. It is neither so memorable that it absolutely blows the audience away and becomes a classic, yet it wasn’t bad enough to warrant the sever mistreatment in marketing that Disney afforded it. At the end of the day, it really is just an okay movie, and there is nothing wrong with that. I feel as if it will end up forgotten very quickly in comparison to other recent animated features, however I hope I am wrong as Strange World definitely deserves to be seen at least once.
