Netflix’s kid-friendly ‚Slumberland‘ — an off-base adaptation of Winsor McCay’s classic ‚Little Nemo‘ comics — serves up a kooky Jason Momoa, bogus believe-in-yourself lessons and ugly visual effects.
Somewhere between “Alice in Wonderland” and “The Little Prince” in style and sensibility, Winsor McCay’s weekly funny-pages serial “Little Nemo in Slumberland” more than deserves a proper big-screen adaptation. Not that people haven’t attempted it before over the years. (At one point, Hayao Miyazaki tried to get an animated version made. Live-action “Dream One” came closest.) And not that “Constantine” director Francis Lawrence’s ugly and all-around off-putting kiddie movie counts — or even has much of anything to do with McCay’s ultra-imaginative, turn-of-the-20th-century comic strip.
Yes, the main character is named Nemo, and yes, most of the film takes place in the fantastical subconscious realm of Slumberland, where gravity and time play by altogether unpredictable rules. But that’s about as far as the similarities go — which might explain why Netflix hasn’t bothered to underline the connection in its marketing campaign. “Slumberland” feels less like an adaptation of “Little Nemo” than another big, unwieldy modern visual effects movie loosely “inspired by” an earlier piece of name-brand IP (à la Ben Stiller’s “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty,” which it rather unfortunately resembles).
Here’s the pitch: Only child Nemo (in a nifty twist, that’s a girl’s name in this imagining) was raised in a lighthouse by her dad, who tells her a vivid bedtime story before disappearing abruptly after the first scene. The accident occurs offscreen and is barely dealt with before Nemo’s packed up to live with her awkward uncle (Chris O’Dowd) in the big city, which she doesn’t like one bit.
