On paper, Tomorrowland was a film designed and built for, well, me.

Directed and co-written by Brad Bird, who after The Iron Giant, The Incredibles, Ratatouille and Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol is one of my favorite filmmakers, and set in a retro-future full of jetpacks, jumpsuits and beautiful angular buildings (an aesthetic I love, if the rocket in the Blast-O-Rama logo isn’t clear enough), the movie seemed to be checking off every box on my personal checklist.

The trailers had been mostly mysterious, a tale of a young girl and a pin, and a world beyond ours. But how did the final film turn out? I absolutely loved it.

Teenager Casey Newton (Under The Dome’s Britt Robinson) is our entry into the world of Tomorrowland. Living in today’s world (or one of those “not-too-distant" futures), Casey laments what our world of wonder has become. She lives near Cape Canaveral, where a NASA launch site is about to become dismantled - putting her father (Tim McGraw) out of work, and ruining her childhood dream to see the stars. She’s hit with the same ideas in school - the world is ending, war is imminent, we’re screwed, we can’t do anything about it. But even with all of that she wants to know simply - “How can we fix it?“ Then one day, fate intervenes as she discovers a mysterious T-shaped pin - that when she touches it, shows her an amazing world beyond anything we thought possible.

Cut from the same cloth as last year’s Interstellar - although a more optimistic part of it - Tomorrowland is an adventure about achieving something more, achieving greatness. In the vein of Disney live-action classics like Return to Oz or the Amblin Entertainment films of the 80’s, it’s a family friendly journey grounded with realistic characters, even in the most ridiculous of situations.

Tomorrowland sends us as far back as the 1964 World’s Fair, in as beautiful locales as Paris, France, and into the darkest parts of a wall-to-wall filled sci-fi toy shop. It’s a film peppered with jetpacks, robots of different shapes and sizes, and a cranky George Clooney, playing a recluse inventor with a very special connection to Tomorrowland.

Above all else, Tomorrowland serves as a call to action of sorts. We’re in a dark, cynical world - reminded 24 hours a day, 7 days a week about how everything is dying, the Earth is irreparable, and war is at our doorstep. But what the film asks - between incredibly fun action sequences, beautiful imagery, and another fantastic score by Michael Giacchino - is what could we be if we decided to push forward and make the best world we can, even with adversity breathing down our neck?

Brad Bird has been dealing with this sort of storytelling over his past films - The Incredibles showcasing why those who are special should be allowed to indulge their abilities, Ratatouille showing that anyone has the ability to be special - but Tomorrowland acts as a call to action of sorts. If we can all be greater, why aren’t we? And it’s that intense optimism that enveloped me during Tomorrowland.

Yes, the movie isn’t perfect - there’s some third act problems, and some questions I had weren’t well addressed - but even with those issues, you have a movie that captivated me for every one of its 130 minutes, with a great cast, stellar performances, and amazing imagery. If you can’t fall in love with a film as a character glides through a retro-futuristic city on a homemade jetpack, you may be a little dead inside.

Be accepting of the movies flaws, and let it take you away. Touch the pin and see Tomorrowland. You might just want to make for a better tomorrow.