Slumberland takes audiences to a magical new place, a dreamworld where precocious Nemo (Marlow Barkley) and her eccentric companion Flip (Jason Momoa) embark on the adventure of a lifetime. After her father Peter (Kyle Chandler) is unexpectedly lost at sea, young Nemo's idyllic Pacific Northwest existence is completely upended when she is sent to live in the city with her well-meaning but deeply awkward uncle Phillip (Chris O'Dowd). Her new school and new routine are challenging by day but at night, a secret map to the fantastical world of Slumberland connects Nemo to Flip, a rough-around-the-edges but lovable outlaw who quickly becomes her partner and guide. She and Flip soon find themselves on an incredible journey traversing dreams and fleeing nightmares, where Nemo begins to hope that she will be reunited with her father once again.
—Netflix
Francis Lawrence has some undeniable craftsmanship to dispense here, which should be a given for his line of work. It's wasted on what is otherwise this tedious, clothes hanger thin whimsy, which is thoroughly pointless for its own sake and still adopts the relentlessly wrong attitude to be acknowledging and sending up its own distinct lack of importance/quality from the onset, alongside a self-defeating plot that goes and leads nowhere like a thud.
Momoa, Chandler, and O'Dowd are clearly having fun as opposed to putting in irreverent showings worth a damn. None of what they were doing, lampooning about, translated into anything close to entertainment for me.
As for this particular child: wouldn't mind seeing her fade swiftly into obscurity unless she learns to dial down the self-satisfied behavior in the future.
4.5/10
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