Cinematic Releases: Slumberland (2022) - Reviewed

Courtesy of Netflix
Of all the varying adaptations of Winsor McCay’s Little Nemo in Slumberland comic strip from the 1920s and its young dreamer Nemo which ranged from vaudevillian theater to opera to videogames and notably a celebrated American-Japanese animated film in 1989, why did the first major live-action film have to fall into the bland hands of Francis Lawrence?  While debuting strongly with Constantine and copping a Grammy for his video for Lady Gaga’s Bad Romance, everything from I Am Legend to his Hunger Games sequels and more recently Red Sparrow has been met with mixed if not tepid reception at best.  With all the resources at his disposal, the frankly average director outside of Water for Elephants has yet to make a truly involving piece that sticks with you after seeing it.  With his first foray into the annals of kid-dom, the Netflix produced Slumberland, for all its expenses and big star power is another overproduced example of children getting the short end of the stick.

 
In this gaudy, crass, occasionally raunchy gender-swapped reimagining of the story which casts Marlow Barkley in the role of Nemo, Slumberland finds the titular motherless heroine living with her dad Peter (Kyle Chandler) in an islanded lighthouse who after telling the girl a bedtime story mysteriously dies offscreen, sending the orphaned youth to living with her estranged uncle Philip (Chris O’Dowd) in his expensive city apartment.  Struggling with school, Nemo finds herself dozing off into dreamland where she’s accosted by a Beetlejuice-like half-human half-satyr con man named Flip (Jason Momoa) who has the ability to leap from one dream into another.  Despite the shady shaggy-dog thief pickpocketing belongings from others’ dreams, Nemo reluctantly enlists the dream-demon to try and find her deceased father once more to formally bid farewell.  Trouble is you can die in other people's dreams and their search is interrupted by the pursuits of Agent Green (Weruche Opia) who is trying to capture the nefarious Flip.
 
Having dealt largely with visual effects over the years, Francis Lawrence throws everything at you from dancing butterflies to a tentacled bed that at first walks like a horse and then swims in the water oddly like a spider to a recurring sight gag that feels more at home with Trainspotting than kiddie fare.  There’s the Short-Round Asian stereotype snuck in as a recurring sight gag for those who are really paying attention.  In an age where we've come so far with moving past that with such universally accepted Asian films as Parasite and Everything Everywhere All At Once, such sight-gags as this are dispiriting particularly when jammed into a kids movie


At one point there’s a saucy salsa dance number which shows more than a little bit of backside which garnered guffaws and raised eyebrows at the sneak preview and other times Jason Momoa doing his best to ape Michael Keaton by way of Johnny Depp engendered more awkward confusion than laughter.  Worst of all, it commits the Jupiter Ascending sin of furry ears attached to a recognizable human character, awkwardly sticking a clown nose on Aquaman.  Try as this may to emulate The Wizard of Oz, The Company of Wolves or Paperhouse which realistically and fantastically illustrated the gulf between the real and dream world, this grab bag of “enchantment” goes down like stale cotton candy cobbled together from other far more accomplished vendors. 
 
Working with the same longtime Belgian cinematographer behind his other movies, Jo Willems, much of the digitally lensed piece consists of adjustable green screens though some of the sets are reasonably colorful depending on the post-processing work done to each scene.  The soundtrack by Turkish Captain Marvel composer Pinar Toprak is the stuff children’s overstimulating overdoses of enchantment are made of replete with wind chimes, strings and a strong vocal chorus.  The child actress Marlow Barkley is quite good at holding her own and standing up to the intentionally oafish boorish Jason Momoa who seems to be having fun whether we are too or not.  The ones shouldering much of the film’s heavy lifting are the father-figures played by Kyle Chandler and particularly Chris O’Dowd who actually seems to dive deeper than you’d expect from a family-oriented venture.

 
In limited theatrical release followed by the eventual Netflix release on Friday, Slumberland is another example of a beloved intellectual property given a dull screen treatment by, let’s be honest, a hack.  The actors give it their all but the film is another bland ‘believe in yourself’ coming of age TED talk to kids that cheapens the imagination behind the work that inspired this dreck.  If Slumberland proves anything, its that this dude can screw up content slated towards minors too while not really doing anything we haven’t seen a thousand times before.  Most of all though, Slumberland is another cynical, disingenuous “kids” movie burying a movie star in clown makeup while feeding feeble minds the same old Kumbaya.  Whatever did Winsor McCay do to deserve Francis Lawrence?

--Andrew Kotwicki