Stolen Kingdom

Every now and again – often at the movies – one encounters somebody who complains that alas, they were born too late, because the great age of exploration is over. Practically every place on Earth has been discovered now, and all they have is capitalism, there to suck all the joy out of life. It’s a sorry way to look at things because – implicit racism aside – it reveals a lack of imagination. Capitalism has in fact created a whole new world of hidden spaces, forbidden territories and lost treasures. Just ask urban explorers.

For those with the nerve to try, there are places to go exploring in practically every urban area. There can be risks, of course – both legal and physical – but that’s part of the thrill. And if you’re that sort of person, happy to take a chance in pursuit of adventure, fame and fortune, then what better place to do it than the Magic Kingdom itself – Disney World?

“Any time you put something in a locked box, it makes someone wonder ‘How do I get that lock open?’” points out one adventurer early on in this documentary.

Disney is notorious for its litigiousness and the ferocity with which it guards its intellectual property – but its physical property, it emerges, is not so well protected. The film is loosely structured around the mystery of a disappearance – that of Buzzy, a somewhat archaic Disney character who, rendered in animatronic form, was once a star of the Epcot Wonders of Life attraction, though he had spent some time in storage before anybody realised he was gone altogether. There are cameras everywhere at Disney World. How did anyone manage to get him out of the park without being noticed? Where is he now, and who is responsible?

Three kinds of people go exploring in theme parks, we’re told. Fans have been doing it for decades in order to get closer to the characters and stories they love. Others got involved once it became apparent that people would pay vast amounts of money for stolen items, which seems to have a particular appeal to the super rich, being amongst the few things they can’t easily obtain. Then there are those who do it as a dare. The film follows one individual from each of these categories, each of them quite well known within the urban exploration community, and other stories intersect with this.

There’s an incredibly rich supply of material here. Even the smaller anecdotes – about unexpectedly wandering into a scene from Aliens, escaping from Volcano Bay by climbing over a fence to a getaway vehicle, or abruptly realising that it’s possible to get off a ride halfway through and run around a scene – are wildly entertaining. We get to see inside Walt Disney’s private plane, which has definitely seen better days, whilst a discovery in a long-neglected fridge would break the heart of Zombieland’s Tallahassee. We also learn a bit about the kind of background that leads people to this lifestyle.

Then there are the wilder adventures. We see the footage recorded by Adam the Woo, ‘a titan of theme park exploration’, as he attempts to reach the now forbidden Discovery Island, telling fans “I risked my life for y’all, so y’all can see cool things” – a claim with a worrying degree of truth to it. Another highlight is a clip of police interrogation footage which shows an officer trying to suppress both his frustration and his laughter as he interviews a thief bent on denial no matter how obvious his guilt – and who still claims to have come out on top.

The obsessive vlogging of most of the explorers means that director Joshua Bailey has no shortage of material with which to illustrate the various tales, and a lot of it is pretty good quality – these are film fans, after all. The real trick with making a film of this sort is bringing it all together in the edit, and here he has done a splendid job, keeping the narrative lean and suspenseful, balancing the humour with (admittedly brief) reflections on consequence. It’s a great watch throughout: a stoiry of people who, rightly or wrongly, put down the pixie dust and decided to make their own dreams come true.

Reviewed on: 22 May 2026