Disney sci-fi adventure Strange World follows a family of explorers whose differences threatened to topple their latest and most crucial mission. It may not be the rollicking old-school adventure flick it clearly desires to be, but as Liam Maguren discovered, the film makes some surprisingly detailed observations about fatherhood.
Every good adventure film needs a proper sense of danger. Even ones aimed at the whole family must establish the risks of journeying into the unknown. It’s what makes the trip thrilling and the end destination rewarding. Conquering Mt Everest would be an average Sunday if it were flat, short, warm, and had a coffee stand at the end.
The marketing for Disney’s latest animated feature, Strange World, didn’t seem keen to show any real danger with its promos focusing on plushy creatures, bouncy castle environments, and bubbly characters who talk at the rate of three jokes per minute. Fortunately, this isn’t quite the case, and it doesn’t take long for Strange World to show its (not too sharp) fangs.
Jake Gyllenhaal voices Searcher Clade, son of legendary manly-man adventurer Jaeger Clade (Dennis Quaid). Unlike his father, who followed his ego and got lost in the wilderness seemingly forever, Searcher became a humble farmer after discovering a battery-like plant that now powers his village. He’s a town hero, a loving husband, and a caring father to his teenage son Ethan (Jaboukie Young-White). Though he’s not above embarrassing his kid in front of his crush, Searcher appears to be Dad of the Year material.
Their small town—a steampunk-lite, plant-based utopia surrounded by unpassable mountains—experiences the first signs of energy poverty. To find out why Searcher’s miracle plant has gone into decline after all these years, he and Jaeger’s old crew must return to the mountains and discover what’s going on.
The moment they fall into the Strange World, the film establishes its weird creatures as things that could kill you. Granted, the characters don’t pay too much attention to the idea of death, and Jaeger returns seemingly from the dead with almost no repercussions, but for a Disney film, presenting the possibility of the characters dying is an admirable half-step towards creating the stakes this adventure relies upon.
Some creepy creatures add to the film’s sense of danger. The creepiest beast design, barely seen in the trailers, is a nightmare combo of a starving squid and a pissed-off spider. No thank you.
But for every scary species, there are two more cutesy ones thrown at the screen to blunt the story’s sense of peril. Splat, a multi-armed blue blob with the voice of two balloons rubbing, is the biggest culprit, a stereotypical cutesy sidekick critter done to death in almost every other Disney animated film but with almost none of the charm. Another character says, “I want to merchandise it,” as if the joke’s meant to paper over Disney’s painfully obvious intent here.
Aside from the three key generations of men—Jaeger, Searcher, and Ethan—the rest of the human characters aren’t fleshed out enough to make them memorable. If any of them were to die, it probably wouldn’t hit the heart.
Though Strange World doesn’t fully grasp the thrills it aims for, it manages to successfully establish that other pillar of a good adventure—an absorbing sense of discovery. This quality doesn’t present itself until late into the film, and going into details would spoil things, but a third-act reveal forces the characters (and the audience) to rethink their assumptions and understand why dire change is necessary—in this Strange World and our own strange world.
That call for change neatly parallels the personal growth of Strange World‘s two key father figures—Jaeger and Searcher—who have never seen eye to eye. Jaeger, with all his chest-beating bravado, cannot relate to his pacifist son Searcher, who hangs his sense of righteousness higher than he realises. Searcher cannot understand why Ethan would be compelled by all this adventuring nonsense, so when Jaeger starts giving Ethan some hearty grandpa advice (tackling a journey, wooing a crush, handling a flamethrower, etc.), the idea of his son becoming his father drives Searcher nuts. Though the script relies too heavily on coincidences to make this all work, it does hold some surprisingly detailed observations about fatherhood.
Strange World may not be the rollicking old-school adventure flick it clearly desires to be, but by matching its perspectives of intergenerational manhood with a clear stance on environmental protection, the film manages to dive deeper than most Daddy Issues films and pull out something of significantly more value. For the longest time, men have over-inflated their own sense of importance, but as this film’s stunning final shot proves, it’s far more important to understand your tiny position in this gigantic world.
