Strange World (2022)

Score: 4.5 / 5

Right when I expect to hit the snooze button on Disney, they do this. Easily my favorite animated feature film since Raya and the Last Dragon, Strange World continues Disney's trend of repopularizing old tropes with metafictional awareness and vibrant fun. Not unlike Onward, this one primarily centers on male family relationships, though this time it's all about multigenerational men. It also models itself on classic science fiction adventure tropes, namely those pioneered by the likes of Jules Verne and Arthur Conan Doyle. Complex and thoughtful, the film works best -- as the best of Disney does -- as a straightforward adventure for kids and as a heavily thematic nostalgia trip for adults. It's also arguably the most progressive Disney movie yet, which came as a joyous shock in our recent trip to the cinema.

If Avatar, Osmosis Jones, and Journey to the Center of the Earth had a brainchild, Strange World would be it. It begins with a very retro prologue, in which an adventurous and stubborn explorer Jaeger Clade (Dennis Quaid) and his insecure and prudent son Searcher (Jake Gyllenhaal) attempt to traverse the impassible surrounding mountains that isolate their homeland Avalonia. Along the dangerous journey, they discover a new green plant that generates energy, which leads them to a parting of the ways: Searcher wants to take the plant, which he calls "Pando," back home to help the people of Avalonia, but Jaeger dismisses him and leaves alone into the wild. The film launches forward twenty-five years, where we see Searcher is enshrined as a hero for saving Avalonia with the (literally) green renewable energy of Pando.

Searcher has become a Pando farmer along with his aviator wife Meridian (Gabrielle Union) and their teenage son Ethan (Jaboukie Young-White). In this entrancing introductory sequence, we see Disney's fabulous inclusivity on full display: an interracial marriage, a mixed-race son, a critical emphasis on renewable energy, a dog with only three legs, and Ethan's burgeoning queerness as he flirts with his crush, Diazo. It seems like Disney took to heart all the calls for queer representation from Frozen and Luca and finally did something about it! You could feel the audience's joy in the auditorium when Ethan and Diazo get caught up in a meet-cute in front of the Clade farm, and then when Searcher jumps in to lovingly and supportively embarrass his son.

But Avalonia is a land on the brink of ecological crisis, and Pando is dying from mysterious causes. One of Jaeger's old fellow explorers Callisto (Lucy Liu) enlists the Clades to help solve the case, and they embark on an adventure deep under Avalonia, where they've learned all Pando comes from the same source. So as they follow the pulsating green tendrils, they discover an entire underground ecosystem vibrant with life. It's like Pandora or Fern Gully or Atlantis or the Hollow Earth, a place of trippy colors and otherworldly wildlife and sentient plants. It doesn't take long for them to find curious amoeba-like critters, large tentacled balls that destroy everything in their path, aerial highways of birdlike blobs, rivers of neon acid, and ultimately Jaeger himself, who has spent the last two and a half decades living in this indeed strange world.

The reappearance of Jaeger sparks the crux of drama in this film, and the three generations of Clade men are forced to confront their own insecurities. Brilliantly, the writers and directors avoid clichéd conflicts for the most part, letting Ethan's voice be just as strong as Searcher's when they argue about the future of their Pando farm, letting Searcher's accusations of abandonment by Jaeger land rather than be dismissed, and even when Jaeger learns his grandson might be in love with another boy he reacts enthusiastically. These simple sidesteps around familiar potholes are indicative of this film's tone, which actively breathes fresh air into what is otherwise a fairly stale mash-up of genre-typical tropes. And then there's the pure visual invention of the film, which makes it endlessly watchable and delightful. Bravo, Disney!