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| 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
