Strange World Review

Strange World Review

Strange World has finally dropped on Disney+ and I was able to watch it. And I’ve been kind of curious to check this one out because the reviews haven’t been the best, and the film bombed at the box office. So I’m curious to see how this does now that it’s on Disney+. How is the movie? Is it better than everybody else is saying? Let’s get started!

The Good:

As it is a Disney animated film you have to talk about one thing, the animation style. And this movie looks really cool. It’s a big slick Disney production that from top to bottom looks great. It’s kind of easy to forget, I forget this too but most animated movies these days have big budgets. This movie cost $180 million to make and you can just feel this slick production happening. So the movie is gorgeous before we go to the strange world, it’s so colorful and fun to look at. Then we go to the strange world and it’s just this wacky and strange looking world that is fun and interesting to visit and explore. Even the designs of the characters I thought were interesting and fun to look at. 

From there, I thought this movie was very funny and kept a great sense of humor from beginning to end. Where this movie more so than Encanto or any recent Pixar movies had me chuckling and laughing out loud the most. Some of the characters are just fun here that have big personalities that bring out some nice touches of humor. You get some fun new animal sidekicks with splat and Legend the dog that bring some nice touches of humor to this movie. But you even get some jokes from just teenagers being awkward, and teenagers acting like teenagers. So there is a bit of a romance plot in the movie, and the dad wants to meet the romantic partner. And from that you get a lot of humor. 

Another nice touch here, they got a fun voice cast with this movie. And it’s filled with actors that I wouldn’t think to cast in a Disney animated movie. Like Jake Gyllenhaal hasn’t done a lot of family movies like this over his career, but I thought he worked in this movie. You bought him as this adventurer has some family troubles with his dad. And he just brings this fun humor about him. Dennis Quaid plays his dad, and he’s also a lot of fun. And it’s kind of fun because this is a reunion between Gyllenhaal and Quaid as father and son. They previously played father and son in The Day After Tomorrow 18 years ago. And both movies kind of deal with similar sorts of ideas, just a fun fact for you. 

Also the movie has some nice world building going on for both worlds we explore. First, we have Earth and that’s the place the book ends the movie. We understand who the lead character is and what his family brought to his city. Second, we get the strange world where the adventure takes place and it’s just a fun world to go around and explore. You get a lot of fun moments and scenes of exploring this world of strange creatures and plants. All through-out the movie you get some nice solid moments of world building.

Finally, I thought the movie had some interesting ideas being explored here. Like the movie has three generations as the main characters. You have the grandpa, the dad, and the son and it explores kind of the generation expectations for everybody. It explores ideas of what you want to do in life. And should you or should you not continue your parents’ legacy as your own. It tackles them in an interesting way in this movie. 

The Bad:

Big thing with this movie might go against what I just mentioned. I praised the movie for having some interesting ideas about generation expectations. And what your parents want you to do versus what you yourself wants to do. And it’s an interesting idea, but it’s also an idea that’s been explored many times before. Coco, Encatno, and Turning Red all have this similar idea of a kid who wants to do one thing, but is manipulated by their parents to do their thing. Part of Coco's journey is Miguel wanting to be a musician, but his family not liking musicians and wanting him to make shoes. That idea continues into Encanto, Turning Red, and now this movie. And I’m probably missing a couple of other movies that tackle this idea. And since we’ve seen this story template done with Disney and Pixar movies so much over the last several years, this movie just becomes familiar and predictable. You know pretty early on where this movie is going and what’s going to happen by the end of the movie. 

When we set out on this adventure in a strange world. The whole conflict is the family trying to get home and out of this strange world. But going into the third act this movie sets up a new conflict to overcome, that comes out of nowhere. And I don’t think the idea of what’s happening is a bad thing, it could have been interesting if it was set-up early on in the movie. But it just comes out of nowhere and makes certain characters evil for no real reason. Again, the idea isn’t bad, just the way it happens and playing it out made it worse for me. I don’t want to spoil anything that happens in the finale, but if you’ve seen the movie then you know what I’m talking about. 

Finally, I thought this movie had a few too many things that it wanted to tackle. We get conflict between the grandpa and dad, the son’s romance, the relationship between the dad and son, the family farm, the strange world, family reunions, more family conflict, plus a new threat and villain set-up in the third act. So the movie tries to juggle and balance all of these plotlines as you go through-out the movie. And I don’t think it quite evened all of this out as you go through-out it. The middle in particular can feel a bit clunky in the way it tells its story. 

Final Thoughts: In general I thought that Strange World was another solid Disney adventure film. I thought the animation style was gorgeous and fun to look at. The humor and voice cast are also a lot of fun. And the movie has some interesting ideas about generational expectations. And I thought when it comes to the themes, clunky storytelling, and third act the movie doesn’t work as well as I think it should have. I think if this movie removed some plot lines from the film and changed the third act then it could have been this really funny and great Disney movie. But as of now we get a good Disney adventure. 

The Score: 8.4/10 (B)