Slumberland review: Jason Momoa shines in dull family fantasy adventure
ACCORDING TO
FERDOS
PUBLISHED ON NOVEMBER 19, 2022
While director Francis Lawrence's Slumberland draws inspiration from the comics, it fails to capture the whimsy and delight of its origins.


movie Slumberland Jason Momoa and Marlow Barkley in Slumberland
Jason Momoa gallivanting through someone's dreams sounds like—wait for it—a dream come true. Fortunately for kids everywhere, the actor's latest film Slumberland is a fantasy adventure for the whole family, starring Momoa as a sly, horned creature with sharp teeth. His character is the perfect helper for any child who dares to venture into the world of dreams. While director Francis Lawrence's Slumberland draws inspiration from the comics, it fails to capture the whimsy and delight of its origins.



Adapted from Winsor McCay's Little Nemo in Slumberland comic, Slumberland follows Nemo (Marlow Barkely), a young girl who travels through a dream world with a satyr outlaw (Momoa). After her father's death, she is sent to live with her boring uncle and soon after is awakened to the world outside of sleep. In the comic, the boy dreams into extraordinary situations; Dreams often start off simple, then get weirder as the comic goes on. The comic strip, printed in the New York Herald, was praised for its originality and McCay's art and imagination.

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Slumberland Jason Momoa Marlow Barkley Jason Momoa and Marlow Barkley in Slumberland
Slumberland is, in some ways, Lawrence's own The Addams Family. Barry Sonnenfeld's successful adaptation of Charles Addams' The Addams Family comic was faithful to its source material and expanded on the ideas brought forth by the comic itself. Slumberland goes the other way and tries to borrow from the source material only to fit it into a conventional Hollywood family adventure without much of the heart or imagination that was put into the comics.


While fans of Winsor McCay may bemoan this lackluster adaptation, children and families may find enjoyment in the adventure that unfolds. The film is a spectacle, even if the CGI rendering is a bit too conventional. A simple yet compelling story with its core story following themes of sadness and non-conformity, it is sure to delight young children and entertain adult audiences for the most part. While Little Nemo in Slumberland was considerably darker than its Netflix adaptation, Lawrence retains enough of its origins to scare or challenge younger audiences.


Slumberland movie review Jason Momoa and Marlow Barkley in Slumberland
However, the adaptation is dull and dreary. It lacks ambition, and Lawrence's reluctance to do anything creative with digital cinematography is frustrating. The film is not without splashes of color, but the palette is too muted to count. If Hollywood didn't have such a low opinion of animation, Little Nemo in Slumberland would be wonderfully realized in this medium. First, the cartoonish antics of Momoa’s Flip would be elevated and the otherworldliness of the dream world better recognized. While the film attempts to cultivate a whimsical atmosphere with an aesthetic borrowed from the work of Sonnenfeld and Pushing Daisies creator Bryan Fuller, Slumberland's efforts are in vain. In the end, it could have made a remarkable animated film.


Aside from the visuals, the film falters with a spectacularly lackluster screenplay. For one thing, the film's narrative is quite reserved and derivative. Going back to McCay's comics, Nemo's dreams were often pointless, limitless, and chaotic. They lacked structure, but this adaptation is obsessed with structure and rules. While themes of non-conformity are pushed subtly, the dream world is significantly limited by its insistence on making sense of Nemo's grief. The script sometimes adamantly twists itself to make sense instead of letting chaos reign. Nemo's mental and emotional state can ultimately be resolved by simply recognizing that dreams are not eternal, but a pleasant escape. Emotions can be unpredictable and complex, but none of that is adequately reflected in Nemo's adventures in Slumberland.


Slumberland doesn't drop the ball in delivering its emotionally charged story, but fantasy is a genre where rules and conventions don't have to apply. The closest it comes to truly exploiting the joy of the genre is Pinar Toprak's moody and thematic score, which captures the heart and emotions that Lawrence's direction and David Guion and Michael Handelman's screenplay cannot. There is very little that is charming about Slumberland, but it is not without its entertainment value. Momoa puts on a great show and Marlow Barkley is a talented young actress who effectively conveys the depth of her character's emotions. One wishes adaptations of beloved works were as imaginative and artistic as their source material, but that rarely happens. Slumberland is far from a snooze fest, but like most dreams, it fades once it's over.