Strange World – Film Review
by Katie McCann

Director – Don Hall, Qui Nguyen(co-director)
Writer – Qui Nguyen
Stars – Jake Gyllenhaal (voice), Jaboukie Young-White(voice), Gabrielle Union

Strange World is the newest addition to the Disney Animation catalogue and tells the story of the Clade Family and the very strange world they discover under their feet. Jaeger Clade is a world-renowned explorer but his son Searcher is, well, not. All Searcher wants to do is farm and for a father whose ambition is to discover new worlds understandably the two have some serious father-son issues. After Jaeger disappears on an expedition, Searcher is free to follow his dreams but when the power producing plant Pando he discovered starts to wither he must go on an adventure and face his past as well as an uncertain future.

Strange World is a homage to the old-time adventure movies such as King Kong and Journey to the Centre of the Earth. As always the animation style is beautiful and the imagination of the storytelling is really enchanting but it lacks that Disney sparkle we have come to know and love. The plot is thin in places and the characters are not quite as engaging as you might hope. The one saving grace of the film is that the final act has quite a clever (if not entirely on the nose) plot twist that pulls everything together. But with a run time of 102 minutes, I think it might be hard for some youngsters to stick it out to the end.

There are lots of things to like here but sadly I don’t think this film will be joining the top-tier Disney movies. It’s hard to compete with a cannon as vast and magical as Disney’s but this is a fun and interesting little film with a big concept behind it that feels very relevant to today’s world.