Wonder Park

Wonder Park is an ambitious but messy animated kids movie that I can neither brand a success or a failure.  On one hand, the movie does have a lot more on its mind than you might expect, grappling with some tough issues, like the effect the idea of losing a loved one can have on a child.  But on the other hand, the movie does not have the confidence to fully explore these themes, since it mixes it with the usual cartoon slapstick humor provided by the talking animal cast.  This is a movie that constantly seems to be at war with itself, and never knows if it wants to take itself seriously, or if it wants to be a fun romp for very little kids. 

One only needs to look behind the scenes to get a good idea as to why the movie seems to suffer from an identity crisis.  The film was originally intended to be the directorial debut of former Pixar animator, Dylan Brown.  However, he was removed from the project early in 2018 after he was met with accusations of Sexual Misconduct.  He was then replaced by three other directors (David Feiss, Clare Kilner and Robert Iscove), who were tasked with finishing the film in his place.  The weird thing is, none of the directors involved get final credit.  In fact, the movie has no "Directed by" credit at all.  Perhaps this explains why the movie seems to have such clashing and alternating tones.  For most of its running time, the film wants to be a metaphor for both creativity and depression.  But every so often, the movie gets sidetracked by some very noisy action and comic sequences that seem completely out of place.  Clearly there was no unified vision, and the movie just never comes together because of it.  There are bits and pieces where it works, but it's just too unorganized to recommend. 

The film's plot centers on a bright and inventive young girl named June (voice by Brianna Denski), who enjoys spending most of her days designing a fantasy amusement park called Wonderland.  With the help of her supportive mom (Jennifer Garner), June has managed to build elaborate blueprints, models, and even some crude working versions of some of the rides and attractions she is constantly dreaming up.  The rides that June and her mother come up with together vary from the imaginative and the enchanting (a carousel where the guests ride flying fish), right down to the potentially dangerous.  One ride June designs consists of a giant ball that passengers enter that is sent flying from one end of the park to the other with reckless abandon.  It looks like something out of that Johnny Knoxville movie from last year, Action Point, and would probably result in numerous lawsuits if attempted outside of a child's imagination.

All of June's dreaming and imagination is brought to an immediate halt when her mom is diagnosed with a serious illness that is never mentioned, but appears to be cancer.  After her mom is sent away to a hospital for treatment, June loses all of her creativity, and devotes her entire time to being overly protective of her dad (Matthew Broderick), so that he doesn't become sick or injured also.  Wanting his daughter to get out of the house and to stop obsessing over his safety, dad sends June away to Math Camp for the summer.  During the bus ride to camp, June makes the snap decision to ditch the other kids, and go off on her own.  While walking through the woods, she somehow discovers a physical version of the Wonderland theme park that her mom and her used to dream of.  The park, however, has fallen into total disrepair, and a dark cloud hovers overhead, destroying everything that was once fun and good about the land June once created.

Not long after, June runs into some living versions of the stuffed animals that she used to play with, and often were involved in her elaborate dreams.  The gang of animals include a narcoleptic bear named Boomer (Ken Hudson Campbell), beaver twins Gus (Keenan Thompson) and Cooper (Ken Jeong), a no-nonsense boar named Greta (Mila Kunis), and an uptight porcupine named Steve (John Oliver).  They explain to June that the dark cloud hovering over the park is called The Darkness, and that it suddenly appeared one day, and started destroying Wonderland.  The leader of the animals, a chimpanzee named Peanut (Broadway veteran Norbert Leo Butz, doing very good voice over work here), disappeared that same day, and since then, there has been no magic or joy in the park.  Adults in the audience will quickly pick up that the mysterious Darkness destroying Wonderland is actually June's fear and depression over her mom's illness taken physical form, and that it is destroying all of her creativity and imagination.  The only way to save the park is to find Peanut, and encourage him to create once again, since he too has fallen into a depression, and no longer has the creative spark within him.

Wonder Park does have a lot of ideas, perhaps too many for a film that only runs 85 minutes.  Therefore, the movie seems to rush through most of its plot, creating a kind of nonsensical tone.  Not a whole lot is explained here.  Is June somehow in another world when she encounters the physical Wonderland?  That seems to be the case, as when her mom and her were dreaming up the park, they would whisper their ideas into the ear of a stuffed toy monkey.  Somehow, Peanut would hear these whispers on the wind, and would start creating the rides and attractions they dreamed up.  So, the toys are somehow a gateway between the real world and this alternate world Wonderland and these animals exist in?  That seems to be the direction this movie wants to go, but it never really explains.  Another curious thing, when Wonderland is thriving, we see it filled with people enjoying the rides.  However, when The Darkness arrives, all the people vanish instantly.  So, did these people even exist in the first place?  Were they too part of June's imagination?  I must admit, these are not the kind of questions I usually ask while I'm watching a movie from the Nickelodeon TV network's film division.  I look forward to the existential ponderings that the next SpongeBob movie will provide.

But I digress.  The movie is obviously trying to copy the formula Pixar perfected of mixing family entertainment with more adult themes about loss or depression, such as Up or Inside Out.  But there is not a proper flow here.  The movie will frequently get sidetracked by lengthy slapstick-inspired sequences featuring the animal characters that seem shoehorned into the narrative to give the kids something to laugh at.  Naturally, these moments are here to lighten the mood of the film, but they simply seem out of place.  It often feels like the movie is distracted.  It doesn't want to get too moody or sad, so it will suddenly throw in a wacky scene where Boomer the Bear has to test a roller coaster ride that goes awry.  This wouldn't be so bad if the very next scene didn't involve June grappling with her own fear and anger over her mother's hospitalization that turns everything deadly serious, and having to face "The Darkness" head-on.  This is a movie that tries to be melancholy and goofy almost from scene-to-scene, and it just doesn't connect like it should.

Wonder Park does have some good moments.  I liked the look of the film, and some of the more serious topics it covers were actually handled quite well in a way that won't scare young children too much.  Will kids like it?  I honestly can't say.  The movie often seems to be confused as to whether it's trying to teach a valuable life lesson, or if it wants to be a zany and fun cartoon.  It tries to have it both ways, and ends up accomplishing little as a result.  The movies it's trying to emulate knew how to speak to all audiences, while this one seems to be unsure of who it's trying to speak to.

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