There’s at least one element of Disney’s “Strange World” that lives up to the title: the animation. This hybrid of retro pulp magazine adventure with CGI spectacle throws out the rulebook when it comes to conjuring the flora and fauna of an underground world. This realm goes by Pando, and it often feels like the characters are stopping one syllable short of saying what their surroundings most resemble: Pandora, the magic kingdom of James Cameron’s “Avatar.”
Pity, then, that little else of the film manages to capture as spectacular as the spectrum of colors in Pando. “Strange World” is, by all accounts, a paint-by-numbers animated adventure from the Mouse House. It’s as if all the imagination went into the visuals, and none of it went into the story.
The film is at least consistently engaging as a piece of family fun. This madcap multigenerational journey beneath the surface of Avalonia follows a gaggle of fathers and sons of the Clade lineage, each eager to differentiate himself from the man who came before. At the center is Searcher (voice of Jake Gyllenhaal), a mild-mannered farmer who keeps his own family close after feeling abandoned by his impetuous dad Jaeger (voice of Dennis Quaid). But when Searcher’s miracle cure for agriculture threatens to destroy their town, he and his son Ethan (voice of Jaboukie Young-White) must investigate at the very site of his own paternal estrangement.
Once they begin burrowing into the mysterious natural world, Ethan develops a taste for adventure not unlike his grandfather — much to the dismay of Searcher. The most intriguing moments of “Strange World,” at least among those that occur between humans, examine the strange connections that course through blood ties. Is it possible that some traits simply skip a generation? Do sons inevitably grow up as a reaction to their dads in fear that they will become them?
The unexpected kinship that develops between Jaeger and Ethan becomes all the more tender through the way the movie handles the latter’s sexuality. There’s a moment where the booming patriarch wishes to impart courtship advice to his grandson, and with slight tentativeness, Ethan indicates the object of his affection is someone using male pronouns. Screenwriter Qui Nguyen doesn’t pause for a teachable moment here — heck, there’s not even the slightest hesitation as Jaeger launches into his advice without any indication of tempered excitement. Given Disney’s penchant for overemphasizing even the most cursory elements of LGBTQ+ representation, the simplicity and sincerity stand as a welcome change of pace.
But while it works at this moment, “Strange World” falters by overdoing the plainness. Director Don Hall seldom colors outside the lines of a traditional Disney tale. The setting may be bold and new, but little else is. Heck, even an amorphous blob that seems to have the consistency of Flubber operates with the same scene-stealing logic as Sven from “Frozen” or Maximus from “Tangled.” These creatures don’t talk because they don’t have to, pulling on broad gag-based humor that delight in a way that might make a silent film star blush.
If only the voicework could be even a fraction as wild as, say, Jaboukie Young-White’s unhinged tweets. Gyllenhaal makes for the stand out of the cast, bringing equal parts silliness and seriousness to his dorky dad era. But “Strange World” never lets him or anyone else in the recording booth go as wild as the environment around the characters. It’s genuinely a bit jarring that they seem so sedate with all that’s swirling around them.
“Strange World” has something of a twist up its sleeve about the nature of the journey, too, connecting the topography to the thematic elements of the story. Yet the late-breaking development falls emotionally flat because the characters cannot quite sell the stakes of their discovery. There’s more to Pando than meets the eye, as it turns out, but that’s the only organ fully engaged by the journey from the jump.
The Disney animators clearly had a blast creating a world beyond their wildest dreams and finding the connections between all the curios they created. Too bad that they could not let the wider creative team in on the fun – and the audience as well, for that matter. A visual feast leaves the other four senses wanting. [C+]