Review: Disney's 'Strange World' is a good-looking but all-too-familiar science fiction tale

Disney’s latest animated movie, “Strange World,” is a visually wondrous but narratively slight movie, a collection of ideas cobbled together from classic adventure tales like “Journey to the Center of the Earth” and “The Lost World.”

The prologue introduces us to the explorer Jaeger Clade (voiced by Dennis Quaid), whose thirst for adventure and glory propel him to try to climb over the circle of mountains that isolates his nation of Avalonia. He also raises his son, Searcher, to join him on these expeditions — but as a young adult (voiced by Jake Gyllenhaal), Searcher would rather study the strange energy-producing plant life he finds during Jaeger’s latest push over the mountains. The two argue, and Jaeger continues toward the mountains alone.

Cut to 25 years later, and Searcher is in his 40s, married to Meridian (voiced by Gabrielle Union), a crop-duster pilot — and they have built a successful farm, growing that energy-producing plant, now called Pando, which has turned Avalonia into a technologically advanced country, like Wakanda but with more puffy airships.

Searcher and Meridian also have a teen son, Ethan (voiced by Jaboukie Young-White), who has more of the explorer gene than his dad finds comfortable. (Ethan also has a crush on a teen boy, which makes him the first major character in a Disney cartoon who’s gay. This has nothing to do with the plot, but it’s good to have in there because it will make all the wrong people lose their damn minds.)

Searcher gets a visit from Callisto Mal (voiced by Lucy Liu), the president of Avalonia and a former crewmate of the Clades in their exploring days. Something is affecting the Pando, which is all connected through the roots (just like the real pando, the 107-acre aspen stand in central Utah). Callisto is leading an expedition to save Avalonia’s power supply, and wants Searcher, as the leading expert on Pando, to join her. Soon all the Clades are on the trip — including Jaeger, who they find in this underground world.

Co-directors Don Hall (who’s co-directed “Big Hero 6” and “Raya and the Last Dragon”) and Qui Nguyen (who co-wrote “Raya”) create some stunning visuals for this underground world — a place where everything is both amazing and trying to kill people.

The weak spot is the screenplay, credited to Nguyen, which recycles some well-worn science-fiction conventions (including some I can’t identify without spoiling the film) and then falls back on way-too-familiar father-son tropes. As visually great as “Strange World” is, the story underneath isn’t as strange as it needs to be.

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‘Strange World’

★★1/2

Opens Friday, November 23, in theaters everywhere. Rated PG for action/peril and some thematic elements. Running time: 102 minutes.