ReelBob: ‘Strange World’ ★½

By Bob Bloom

“Strange World” is one of the blandest and dullest Disney animated features I have seen in a very long time.

Plodding and cliché-ridden, it has a messy story and stereotypical characters.

For a feature set in a world of wonders, the film is flat — its colors fail to jump off the screen, and it lacks magic and a sense of awe.

The main conflict revolves around the Clades, a legendary family of explorers. When Jaeger Clade (voiced by Dennis Quaid) abandons his support team to fulfill his obsession of discovering what is “out there,” his young son, Searcher (Jake Gyllenhaal), feels abandoned and returns home with the others.

The movie jumps ahead 25 years, showing how Searcher’s discovery of an energy source has enriched the community. Searcher has become a farmer, cultivating and growing the crop that supplies the energy.

But when the crop begins dying for an unknown reason, Searcher is recruited by a former member of his father’s team — who is now president of the community — to join an expedition and help them discover the cause of the disease.

Searcher, still resentful of his father putting his need for exploration and glory ahead of his family, after much cajoling, reluctantly agrees to go.

What he and the others find is a, well, strange world, inhabited by very unique creatures that seemingly have no purpose than to chase and harass the explorers.

What they find in his odd domain helps solve the mystery of the dying energy source. They also discover the still-alive Jaeger who, after a quarter century, remains stubbornly focused on reaching his next goal and gaining more glory.

The father-son dynamics are repetitious, tedious and hackneyed. Even though “Strange World” moves around this unusual landscape it feels like it’s only spinning its wheels.

The movie lacks vigor and a sense of urgency. The script is unwieldy and most of the dialogue feels as if it were written with exclamation points.

And while youngsters may enjoy the various inhabitants of this goofy region, the rest of us will be left unimpressed.

“Strange World” is a misfire, a rare disappointment from the mostly reliable Disney animation studio. The best it can be is a time-consuming babysitter for small children.

I am a founding member of the Indiana Film Journalists Association. I review movies, 4K UHD, Blu-rays and DVDs for ReelBob (ReelBob.com), The Film Yap and other print and online publications. I can be reached by email at bobbloomjc@gmail.com. You also can follow me on Twitter @ReelBobBloom and on Facebook at ReelBob.com or the Indiana Film Journalists Association. My movie reviews also can be found at Rotten Tomatoes: www.rottentomatoes.com.

STRANGE WORLD
1½ stars out of 4
(PG), some thematic elements, action and peril