Butler's Cinema Scene

“ESCAPE FROM TOMORROW” My rating: B- (Opens Oct. 11 at the Tivoli)

90 minutes | No MPAA rating:

“Escape from Tomorrow” is about as subversive as movies get. 

For starters, first-time writer/director Randy Moore shot most of it surreptitiously—and without permission – at Disneyland and Walt Disney World.

The cast members entered the parks like any other guests, and performed their scenes while surrounded by real tourists. Cinematographer Lucas Lee Graham employed  small digital cameras that wouldn’t draw the attention of theme park authorities.

But equally as subversive is the movie’s satiric view of “The Happiest Place on Earth” as a shiny façade concealing a nightmare landscape of swirling, supernatural evil, and its depiction of the average American family as the joyless union of steady backbiting and sexual frustration. 

While his wife Emily (Elena Schuber) and kids Sara and Elliot (Katelynn Rodriguez, Jack Dalton) sleep late in their Orlando-area hotel room, Jim (Roy Abramsohn) paces on the balcony in his skivvies as his boss informs him by telephone that he’s been canned. 

Jim is in no mood to play the happy husband and father at Disney World, but what the hell…he’s already there, right?

Katelynn Rodriguez, Roy Abramsohn

Except that his day just keeps getting weirder and weirder.

First there are warnings posted about something called “cat flu.” (We later learn that among the alarming symptoms are hair balls.) 

Jim is plagued by disturbing hallucinations in which animatronic dolls on the “It’s A Small World” ride briefly mutate into fanged, blazing-eyed demons. 

And he’s so smitten with a couple of cute French teenagers (Annet Mahendru, Danielle Safady) that he spends hours stalking them, frequently forgetting that he’s supposed to be watching his kids. 

Meanwhile the wife is growing increasingly critical of Jim’s lackadaisical parenting and eagerness to scarf up alcoholic beverages at every opportunity. 

At one point he finds himself in a hotel room having sex with a slightly over-the-hill single mother (Alison Lees-Taylor) who later shows up dressed as the evil Queen from “Snow White.” And who knew that deep beneath Epcot’s huge geodesic dome there’s a lab run by a mad scientist (Stass Klassen)?

Elena Schuber

 “Escape from Tomorrow’s” crisp black-and-white cinematography is so slick you’d never know it was shot on the fly with everyone looking over their shoulders. And the performances walk a fine line between realism and bizarre comedy.

 Ultimately, though, there’s not quite enough story to put the movie over the top. It feels like a one-hour TV show that’s been padded, and the big final reveal is more confusing than conclusive.

The Walt Disney Co., a fierce litigator when it comes to protecting its corporate image, apparently decided against suing to suppress the film.  Some legal experts have opined that as a satiric commentary on the Disney empire “Escape from Tomorrow” falls into the “fair use” category and would prevail in any lawsuit over copyright or trademark infringement.

Chalk one up for the little guy. And I don’t mean Mickey.

| Robert W. Butler