Slumberland

A dazzling mix of adventure, resplendent visuals and heartstring-pulling, this new Netflix feature stars Jason Momoa as an outlaw dream spirit who helps a lost girl find her way.

I wasn’t expecting a lot from “Slumberland,” which may just be one of the last big-budget features produced by Netflix as they turn away from ostentatious films and more toward ongoing series. It stars Jason Momoa as a spirit who guides a lost girl through the dream world, and it’s based on a comic strip that stopped running almost a hundred years ago.

I liked Momoa well enough as Aquaman, though I can’t say I’ve been especially impressed with his thespian talents to date. Just another pretty meathead whose career will fade when his six-pack goes south, I figured.

So I’m delighted to say that “Slumberland” is an impressive and dazzling mix of exuberant adventure, resplendent visuals and not a little quality heartstring-tugging. To knock it off, Momoa gives a devilishly charismatic performance as Flip, an outlaw who jags through people’s dreams as his own personal domain.

Flip looks like a mischievous satyr by way of Dickens, wearing a lock frock coat and top hat. He has wild hair and beard, ram’s horns, furry squirrel ears and sharp little fangs. (He even rocks a fair stomach pooch, though I expect that’s padding.) He’s big, smelly and has an outsized, slightly domineering personality.

He used to be the dreamtime companion of Peter (Kyle Chandler), who grew up to be a lighthouse operator living on a tiny rock with his 11-year-old daughter, Nemo, played by Marlow Barkley. (The character was a boy in Winsor McCay’s comic strip.)

But Flip’s been on his own for a long time, jumping from dream to dream, stealing and getting into trouble, and it seems to have left him a bit unbalanced. He’s also being pursued by the Bureau of Subconscious Activities, Slumberland’s cops, in particular the spectacularly Afro’d Agent Green (Weruche Opia).

When Nemo’s dad dies in a storm, she comes to live with her estranged uncle, Philip (Chris O’Dowd). He’s a strange, timid man who lives entirely in his high-rise apartment, running a door knob and locks company. Unable to connect with him and feeling disconnected at school after being home tutored by her dad her whole life, Nemo copes by going on her own nighttime sojourns with Flip.

Flip has a notion that there are magic pearls at the bottom of the Sea of Nightmares that can grant any wish while in Slumberland. Nemo wants to use them so she can dream of being with her dad again, while Flip has his own hidden goals.

Directed by Francis Lawrence, who helmed the last three movies in the “Hunger Games” franchise, “Slumberland” is a visual spectacle of the first order as extravagant CGI is used to depict the shifting landscape of dreams. In one, a fancy ballroom is filled with people made up of butterflies, and there are also icy tundras, video game-like cityscapes, deserts and more.

Among other fanciful scenarios, Flip and Nemo veer through the skies in an old-timey propeller plane while being chased by a shadowy, smokey squid beast that represents the worst of all nightmares. They zip in and out of hidden doors that form the links between different dreams, with danger always close at hand. Turns out that dying in your own dream just wakes you up, but dying in someone else’s means you’ll slumber forever.

The script by David Guion and Michael Handelman contains all sorts of quaint little details and throwaway moments. I loved how Nemo’s bed sprouts legs and transports her like some crustacean leviathan out to sea under the moonlight. Her stuffed pig doll, Pig, comes to life in dreams and acts as a helpful, silent companion. And Flip and Nemo are bound by the outlaw code he dreamed up so many years earlier with her father, like a double-knock request for a favor standing on the same footing as an errant knight’s oath.

The “behind the scenes infrastructure” stuff of Slumberland goes on a little too long for my taste. It seems lately the shtick in Hollywood is to take something like dreams or emotions and ascribe a whole Apple company’s worth of workers busily toiling to make it happen. It was novel when “Monster’s, Inc.,” came along, but that groove is getting a little worn down.

I had the pleasure of being able to watch “Slumberland” with my whole family, and everyone enjoyed it immensely, especially our 9- and 12-year-old boys. Lately they’re not as keen on girl-centric stories, but the hyper-masculine presence of Flip served to even things out.

It’s a big, colorful and fun flick that also plumbs unexpected depths in its last act, as Nemo’s quest comes to a close and Flip’s predicament reveals itself in a heartfelt twist. I can’t help dreaming about what it would’ve looked like on a big screen.