Strange World – An Underwhelming Animated Adventure (Early Review)

Walt Disney Pictures’ animation branch has followed up last year’s wildly successful musical animation Encanto with an adventure picture in Strange World. This film continues on the theme of generational familial trauma, this time focusing on the masculine lens. Just like Encanto, the film is expected to see Christmas Day release on Disney Plus.

Centering around a family of three farmers, led by Jake Gyllenhaal (as Searcher Clade), Gabrielle Union (as Meridian Clade), and their son Ethan, who is voiced by Jaboukie Young-White, this film grapples with a dad who wants to be to for his son what his dad never was for him. However, he becomes the very father he did not want to be like which may sound familiar to a lot of audiences. Strange World is a progressive film and one that definitely does a lot of things right which should be commended, particularly for the representation on screen as depicted across the family.

Losing his father Jaeger Clade (Dennis Quaid) to adventuring at a young age, Searcher since made good on his efforts to keep himself grounded to his farm and his family. He lives with his wife and son and their farm grows a unique kind of crop that serves a vital part of the existence and livelihood of those that inhabit the film. The family is forced to adventure into the core of the earth after their crops begin to rot, potentially putting the entire community at risk.

The family, accompanied by Callisto Mal (Lucy Liu) and others, journey into a weird land in the core of the earth that feels almost like the world in Journey to the Center of the Earth. The crew run into weird and crazy creatures and critters, and a colorful world that is truly alive in every single way. It is here that the family would be reunited the great explorer Jaeger Clade, originally believed to be lost to the aforementioned world. From there, the generational drama comes full circle as Jaeger, Searcher, and Ethan must all learn to confront themselves.

While Strange World is a solid offering from Disney, it is massively underwhelming. It does have some cute moments and a nice story, but the film is rather hollow and merely exposes just how cookie cutter Disney has become. There is a real sense that their recent efforts have become devoid of genuine thrill and imagination and there is a painstakingly clear lack of innovation on screen. By the time the action ramps up and the film is well into the adventure, it feels like it is operating on autopilot. Though a Disney film on autopilot can still be a passable film, it also makes for such an underwhelming experience.

Quaid is easily the standout as Jaeger Clade as he is clearly having a blast with this role and the character is such an easy one to have fun with. He’s an adventurer straight out of an old timey story and someone the film should have featured more of. Meanwhile, the rest of the voice cast is solid but aside from Quaid, there are a lack of standouts here. Aside from Jaeger, another standout is its grand and whimsical score from composer Henry Jackman that more than fits the bill.

In the end, Strange World offers a welcomed progressive approach to a pretty generic story. While an enjoyable watch for the most part despite being underwhelming as a whole. Dennis Quaid’s Jaeger Clade steals the show in a film that could never manage to be something more than just okay. While not awful, it is also something that not many will remember long after the credits roll.

still courtesy of Disney

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Brennan Dubé

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