Strange World Review: The Most Rainbow Disney Animated Film Ever, The New Adventurous Disney Classic
Cast: Jake Gyllenhaal, Dennis Quaid, Lucy Liu, Gabrielle Union, Jaboukie Young-White
Director: Don Hall
Filmyhype.com Ratings: 3.5/5 (three and a half stars) [yasr_overall_rating size=”large”]
Strange World is the new Disney science fiction adventure film about the exploration of unknown territories inside the planet, directed by Don Hall and Qui Nguyen. In its small way and without exceeding in brilliance and memorability some of the Disney animated classics of the past years, the film directed by Don Hall and written by Qui Nguyen manages to speak to the heart of a transgenerational audience, from the oldest to the youngest, who need to feel represented on the big screen. In our review of Strange World, we will try to analyze how much these contemporary elements make the new Disney film perfect for an audience of post-modern families.
The 61st Disney animated classic arrives in cinemas on Wednesday 23rd November; Directed by Academy Award-winning director Don Hall (Big Hero 6), Strange World effectively and inclusively continues the legacy of the current wave of animated films produced by the House of Mickey Mouse: keeping up with the changing times and with a story that has at heart many of the most burning issues that our current society is facing.
Strange World Review: The Story Plot
We find ourselves in the imaginative city of Avalonia, an out of this world known place that has always idolized the exploits of the Clade family for decades; led by the pater familias Jaeger Clade (Dennis Quaid), the Clades have always distinguished themselves for their scouting skills; But everything changes when Jaeger decides to venture beyond the mountains to look for a miraculous plant that he would have provided his city with sustenance for living; disappearing from everyone’s sight, he leaves behind his wife Meridian (Gabrielle Union) and his son Searcher (Jake Gyllenhaal), who after twenty-five years start a new life and expand the family.
Until Callisto Kal (Lucy Liu), the President of Avalonia urges Searcher to follow her for a new adventure that could change everyone’s lives forever. This is the intriguing premise of Strange World, the sixty-first animated feature film by Walt Disney Pictures which arrives in theaters around the world one year after the extraordinary and unexpected success of Encanto. A rather cumbersome witness for the Oscar-winning director Don Hall, who in 2014 had obtained the statuette for the tender and moving Big Hero 6 and of which Strange World has much more in common than it appears on the surface.
Strange World Review and Analysis
As well as for the animated classic set in the colorful San Fransokyo, also Strange World talks about family and father-son relationships, this time disturbing three generations within the same family tree. That of the Clade is by no means a light legacy to pay homage and perpetrate; the great explorer Jaeger would like his son Searcher to follow in his footsteps, but the sudden death of his father pushes his son over time to devote himself to a modest life surrounded by the simple and functional beauty of agriculture. All in all, a different form of taking care of Nature than the more “aggressive” and adventurous approach of the explorer father.
A legacy, that of agriculture, which however seems to be disregarded by the young Ethan Clade (Jaboukie Young-White), madly in love with a man of his age and with his blood boiling full of desire for adventure. Bread for his teeth, which he will get when the whole family is involved in a lysergic search for new natural sources of sustenance in an underground world that seems to pay homage to the science fiction novel Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne and the 1966 cult film Hallucinating Journey.
When all the Clade finds themselves wandering in this colorful and dangerous underworld, they will discover that family ties are what still hold them together despite personal differences and unfulfilled expectations. Where Strange World hits the mark is precisely when it sets aside the pure science fiction and adventure narrative and delves into the psychology of the three generations of fathers and sons who collide: from the revived Jaeger to his son Searcher and then move on to the little Ethan, Don Hall’s animated film tells with tact and genuine sensitivity the cultural struggles and misunderstandings that can arise within multiple generations of the same family unit.
After all, Clade’s Hamletic doubt can be reduced to this choice: to live one’s life as an explorer or as a farmer? The well-characterized protagonists of Strange World will learn over time (and between one daring adventure and another) to love each other exactly for who they are, respecting their dreams, desires and aspirations; without disappointing family expectations, rather celebrating them with a sense of natural acceptance that pervades all the morals of this good inclusive Disney film.
Without abandoning already beaten narrative paths, Strange World manages to achieve two fundamental objectives flying relatively low compared to the Disney classics that preceded it: to tell a story with unpredictable ecological inspirations with a great sense of adventure and to warmly embrace a new slice of young audience LGBTQ+, finally represented in the character of Ethan with delicate and inclusive cinematic writing brushstrokes, anything but pandering. Two thematic objectives that speak directly to a world and a society, ours, in continuous change and transformation; for this reason Strange World – A mysterious world manages to hit the target of its contemporary ambitions with unexpected effectiveness and simplicity.
A real animated film that is aimed at an audience of post-modern families, made up of young and old of all ages, orientations and generations. This time, for real. Directed by Don Hall, co-directed and written by Qui Nguyen and Roy Conli, Strange World brings the same signatures behind Big Hero 6 and Raya and the Last Dragon, sharing both the tone and the main themes, as well in general the artistic direction. Almost completely devoid of original songs, the journey of the Clade family stages a beautiful parable about family ties, the father-son relationship and the weight of an unwieldy inheritance, the importance of finding one’s way and blazing one’s path, against a very often asphyxiating parental will. A story that amuses and entertains properly, directed with the adventurous attitude of a comic from another era, but still far from perfect from a narrative point of view.
Beyond the horizons of his touching and sacrosanct family message, which has reached its final stages, Strange World even reserves a surprising ecological metaphor, as appreciable as it is amazing. The basic problem, however, lies in a fairly predictable warp, both in the development of the plot and in the progress of some twists and turns. At the base, while interestingly dissecting its protagonists – the members of the Clade family in particular – perhaps it is the characters that have the least impact, not as charismatic as those proposed in the very latest Disney iterations (just think of the charismatic Madrigal family described in our review of Encanto).
Perhaps never before has the absence of a weighty antagonist been felt that role, having arrived close to the end credits, is assumed by supporting actors who do not have a proper impact, and who perhaps would have deserved more in-depth study to make such a credible breakthrough. Apart from these defects, Strange World – A mysterious world is a Disney Classic which in part remains only “on the surface” while putting on the plate a story with a precious meaning cloaked in an enjoyable staging. A colorful and spectacular film, which has already been mentioned, brings the Disney-style adventure back on the tracks of older Classics. More was probably needed for the Mysterious World to be truly unforgettable. But that’s okay too: the Walt Disney Animation Studios sign, for better or for worse, another exciting centre.
Strange World Review: The Last Words
Strange World is the 61st Disney animated classic and, in step with changing times, brings to the big screen a tender story of family generations that manages to speak to the hearts of young and old in a surprisingly democratic and inclusive. A simple but effective narrative does the rest despite failing to keep up with the classics of years gone by in brilliance and memorability.
