Out Oct 11 in select theaters, online and VOD
Check here for where it's playing in LA.
What does Disneyland, jail-bait and one man's vision of his childhood have to do with guerrilla-style shooting in the happiest place on Earth? A childish story that gets you over-hyped because someone mentions Disneyland and illegal film shooting.
Escape From Tomorrow had me drooling over it since it was announced at the Sundance Film Fest. More drool out of my open mouth when the trailer recently went up online with a child's eyes turning black on the It's A Small World ride and a tiny Epcot Center spinning around a man's head in some sort of lab.
You want to see the film because of the buzz, in the end it's just a dumb movie that takes place at Disneyland. There's some just awful jokes that take forever to get too. Their juvenile, so crass, Hell going with friends to see this is a must. Those long to get to jokes are some of my favorites, but they're so corny it's even too much for me and I liked Beyond The Black Rainbow. What starts off as almost a Croneberg-style tale devolves into the cheapest jokes, so cheap you'll laugh at how dumb they are with an ending that's not thought-provoking just idiotic.
Some critics will praise the shoot and I'd say there wrong when it comes to the painfully obvious green screen and a startling bad SyFy channel original movie moment at the start of the film. Even the director, Randy Moore, points out how he never used green screen before in press material. He should know when to cut bad scenes out.
What he did to his poor editors, hours and hours of sounds with no notation of time, he should be beat up or at least have his sound editor punch him in the stomach once.
These moments of bad backgrounds were added later after they couldn't finish some scenes due to how hard it is to shoot in Disney, still no excuse to leave them in. When not on green screen some of the shots they got are very cinematic, glowing balloon on shuttle train, but not cutting what looked completely fake hurt the movie. Oh, wait. No it didn't, it's still a very stupid story. The films black and white to take advantage of not having any lighting equipment due to the odd nature of the shoot.
Spoilers
Jim, your average American dad is revealed to be fired from his job on his last day of family vacation at Disney. He's wife, young son and daughter don't know and Jim wants to have one happy final day with his family. Jim encounters two jail-bait French teenagers who eat bananas and have frequent other sexual innuendo moments often when entering the park with his family. The film takes place over the course of one day at the park.
Jim soon starts hallucinating early on or seeing the park for it's true nature, it's never revealed. Hallucinations where the tiny figures in It's A Small World change from happy smiles to murderous smiles and evil eyes.
Soon Jim separates from his wife and daughter to take his son to the Buzz Lightyear shooting ride, it is really that fun in real life to wait in line for. Jim and his son have a Oedipus complex situation from the start of the film, it starts to build here after encountering the French jail-bait girls. Jim and his son follow behind them on rides for some easy to see sexual jokes. A car ride car ramming into the jail-bait a few times driven by his son make it fairly obvious.
After a fight over a timed meet-up with his wife and their son throwing up Jim takes his daughter to explore the park by himself. He loses her and finds her shortly after with a scuffed knee. He encounters a strange electronic wheel-chaired man that I've think seen as a background character in some films and I laughed at his appearance. Don't worry his role in the film will never matter, except for part of a long joke.
Jim takes his daughter to a nurse station and has her looked over, Jim is warned about an outbreak of an animal flu. He encounters a woman reminiscent of Maleficent, Evil Witch and other Disney villains, which does play for the Disney fan in you an is informed he isn't eating a turkey leg for another down the line joke. This down the line joke that goes into the safety of his daughter and her possible sick deflowering making fun of Sleeping Beauty and princesses in general and could have made the film much more serious, sick and more painful for the Disney fan who doesn't want a bad ending.
Instead, we get transported into a ejaculation joke at Epcot center. Jim's encounter with "The Scientist" and fast-paced explanation that Disney can see into your imagination in a secret lab within Epcot is never explained. It's a moment to laugh at with friends and wonder what the Hell the director was thinking. Have a umbrella ready.
The ending's long awaited pay-off has a slow build up and the last part after the fate of Jim makes even less sense.
Moments where things get weird don't last long enough or have deeper meanings they're just jokes, stupid jokes.
This film hurts itself by sillier wet dream ideas undermining the real family moments of sad and strange events at the backdrop of some sort of Disney park. The film tries to be smart, funny, serious and emotional and it can't be all, it becomes a childish sex nightmare. Escape doesn't pan out as the events get goofy and lead nowhere to a "what the Hell did I just watch ending".
If you're a fan of Disney who likes darker idea you might enjoy it, for someone who hasn't ever been to Disney park or watch the films they might not get the same emotions from it someone has In it's way you have to have experienced Disney a little to get the feelings of the film and after that you don't care because the film is a mess of corny jokes.