Wonder Park (Review)

Wonder Park is More like “Okay” Park.

Wonder Park is a whimsical adventure that unfortunately takes us all on an adventure to a magical land we’ve seen oh so many times before. I get that I’m hardly the target audience for a film such as this. After all, I can count to ten without having to rely on my fingers. However, studios like Pixar have shown audiences over the years that just because a movie might be pandering to a younger audience, that doesn’t mean it has to dumb itself down in order to reach them. There is an art to storytelling that transcends age and because of that, I’ve decided to be a bit harder on animated movies this year. Especially given how excellent so many of them were last year.

I wasn’t expecting Wonder Park to be on the same level as last year’s Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse or even Incredibles 2, but I was hoping that it would be at least a fun, fanciful adventure. Unfortunately, it’s a film that proves to have its focus in the wrong areas and in creating all its whimsey it forgets the most important ingredient needed to make these kinds of movies tolerable, heart. Don’t get me wrong, it certainly has the purest intentions, but Wonder Park becomes easily distracted by all the shiny toys and cute animals it gets to play with and soon wonders away from the core of its story.

Wonder Park tells the tale of a little girl named June who is struggling to overcome the sudden illness of her mother who escapes to a fantasy world filled with talking animals, played by the likes of John Oliver, Mila Kunis, and Kenan Thompson. It’s oddly appropriate that Wonder Park is a fictional world created by a child because the movie has about as much focus as a sugar-crazed elementary scholar. It starts off pretty straight forward by establishing the bond between June and her mother during the opening sequence. However, it tries to take a page from Pixar’s Up by featuring their relationship in a sort of montage as June creates this wonderful fictional theme park with the help of her mother, even as she clearly starts to become sicker and sicker. It’s a noble, start but sets an unfortunate tone for the rest of the movies since there is never going to be an opening sequence that tugs on heartstrings harder or more effectively than Up.

The rest of Wonder Park plays like a paint by numbers children’s movie taking inspiration from other (and much, much better) movies. That being said, I’m a firm believer that there is no such thing as a completely original idea, just twists that make old ones new again. However, Wonder Park feels much more like a made for tv movie and not one deserving of a full theatrical release. It’s too unfocused to really leave any lasting impression or teach any worthwhile life lessons. Instead, it races from idea to idea, desperate to try to please the younger members of the audience. It’s because of this obvious desperation to be “fun and quirky” that it ends up lacking any sort of real substance and I think even the littlest kids will sense that. Children are, after all, much more astute than adults give them credit for and I think it’s pretty clear that the adults behind Wonder Park don’t really understand what kids really want.

Of course, I could be being a bit too hard on this film. A movie should be judged on its own merits and not compared to the more successful films that came before it. Even then though, I failed to be drawn in by the whimsey that Wonder Park seems to proud of. Of course, I’m not a child, at least not physically (I’m sure plenty of ex-girlfriends would have a few choice words about whether or not I have the mind of a child). It’s clear that the film expects it’s fantastical concept to water down its themes to make them a bit more palatable. After all, a spoonful of sugar is supposed to help the medicine go down. Even taking that into account, I felt that Wonder Park was a bit too difficult to swallow at points. Instead, it felt dull and blunt, even by subpar animated film standards. It becomes painfully clear early on that it is more focused on bright lights and pretty colors than being a truly worthwhile movie, which is a shame.

I’m sure that small children will be enamored with the talking animals and absurd ideas that come to live over the course of the movie. The grown-ups though will probably find only misery in Wonder Park given the obnoxious tropes it uses. However, I did find it refreshing to find a movie that triumphed the idea of a young girl being an exceptional engineer. There aren’t many films out there that encourage young girls to consider STEM careers and I appreciate the effort on Wonder Park to go against the grain there. If only it had done more of that. Instead, Wonder Park is just like any other theme park. You expect a “splendiferous” time but end up waiting in lines all day with crying kids and a killer sunburn.