Went yesterday to see “Oz: the great and powerful.” What an incredibly fun movie. Well cast, well written and well directed, I have no idea what some negative reviews such as what I read in the New York Times were bìŧçhìņg about.
PAD
Went yesterday to see “Oz: the great and powerful.” What an incredibly fun movie. Well cast, well written and well directed, I have no idea what some negative reviews such as what I read in the New York Times were bìŧçhìņg about.
PAD
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Keep in mind the source: Manohla Dargis has a rep for being very anti-genre and ant-big film, so she painted two targets at once with her laser scope on this one…
I i couldn’t agree more. the wife and I both loved it and agreed James Franco would make an excellent Willy Wonka.
It was your review of “Return to Oz,” years ago, that prompted me to see the movie — for which I am grateful. How do you think “Oz: The Great and Powerful” rates in comparison to “Return to Oz”?
I trust a good writer over an overpaid critic anyday.
I kind of share the sentiments expressed at the end of Ratatouille by Anton Ego in regards to the vast majority of negative criticism.
The EW critic panned it because it didn’t star Robert Downey Jr as Oz. First–I’m sure every movie would like Downey or Depp as the lead. Second–review the movie that got made, not the one you’re thinking about!
The reviews don’t bother me so much as this backlash some feminists are now having against the film: They’re saying that since Baum was a feminist and all his central characters were women, this film is “betraying his philosophy” by making a male a central character. Sigh. That said, it looks dámņëd amazing and I’m eager to see how certain characters got to where they were in the original film.
Yeah, except that kinda falls apart if you actually take time to think about it. The only ones with any real power are women. And two out of the three saw right through his nonsense.
Simple! It’s a fantasy 99% of the time critics don’t get these and or scifi movies!
Thanks Mr. David going to see tomorrow, hope you and yours are doing well.
My wife has been protesting this movie since we saw the large standup in the theater when we saw Frankenweenie. Now, seeing some of who’s in the cast and a few scenes on TV, she’s coming around.
She also wants to see GI Joe: Retaliation because Bruce Willis is in it. Either way, two movie dates with my wife!
Saw it this weekend with the wife, and we both agreed it was a very solid movie. I thought most of the cast was phenomenal (particularly Franco and Weisz). I’m not sure Mila Kunis was the best choice for her part, but that was my only complaint.
*Quasi spoiler*
I really enjoyed the execution of the big plan at the end of the movie; felt very true to the character of the original Wizard of Oz’s title character.
As a spoiler to a spoiler, some commercials for the movie (which I saw today: pretty good) show the big “face in the smoke,” so in a sense it’s another movie where the commrcials blew a big frickin’ part of the grand finale. I so hate when that happens — especially since there’s no spoiler warning to keep someone from me like finding out about it!
I hadn’t seen that preview and am glad I did not. More and more previews are doing this and it drives me crazy. A Good Day to Die Hard was a terrible movie, but even it showed the final line of the film in 90% of the previews.
That’s a big part of why I was so excited for Prometheus; I felt the previews gave away little of the plot/surprises.
I saw it yesterday, and wasn’t terribly impressed with it. It was an okay way to spend a couple of hours, but wasn’t that big a deal. From Sam Raimi’s previous work and the subject matter, I was hoping for something a bit more epic, or at least a bit deeper–hëll, I would’ve settled for something better-acted–but this hovered just a bit over mediocrity. I didn’t think that Evanora or Theodora made credible or worthy villains, nor did I think Theodora’s character arc, or what was presented as one, made any sense at all. (Why did she initially deny being wicked? Why did being duped by Oz over such a superficial dalliance cause her to snap? As prequel/origin stories go, this wasn’t much better than Anakin’s in the Star Wars prequel trilogy.) I also didn’t think that Mila Kunis, who is good in the right roles, was believable in this one. Her voice when screaming sounded like a little girl’s. Oz’s character arc involving a con artist learning to be a good man and a hero has been done before, and better. It also made no sense to me that only the Master Tinkerer know about Oz’s plan with the balloon, much less why Oz had to fill it with gold. The conflict just wasn’t that compelling, and the climax, while straightforward and logical, just didn’t have that satisfying feeling, having suffered from the limitation of the creators’ desires to end everything to be consistent with the classic film.
Have you seen Jack the Giant Slayer? I quite enjoyed it, so I’m a bit bummed that it’s bombing so badly (the alliteration wasn’t intentional at first, but once I realized what was happening, I just went with it).
I loved the basic concept. I wasn’t particularly impressed by James Franco, and I thought Michelle Williams was too understated. At least she had the kind of beauty I wanted to see out of Glinda. But the story was fantastic and a wonderful addition to the Oz mythology! I’d recommend it to anyone, at any age.
While James Franco was fine in the role, I think I see why some people grumbled about his casting. They were expecting a young Frank Morgan.
I enjoyed it. Usually the third act is the most boring part of the movie for me, since it usually plays out in an extremely predictable way. This time I was quite interested in seeing what his plan was and how it played out, and they managed to give us surprises within the story and still remained consistent with the original book. I always enjoy how Sam Raimi’s horror sensibilities create those little macabre moments, even in his PG work (the witch’s tears, ack!), further proof that he should have been allowed to continue with the Spiderman films.
I saw the film last week and found it to be thoroughly enjoyable. Although there were obvious conflicts in continuity with the 1939 movie, the many homages to the original that were included added to my enjoyment throughout. I did go in thinking that there would be some plot thread involving the ruby slippers and was somewhat surprised when there wasn’t; but since it seems likely now that a sequel will be spawned, perhaps that film will take it on.
L.Hicks, Disney does not have rights to the 1939 film, so they were not allowed to mention things that were specific to that film. In the original book the slippers are silver (ruby was used to show off the Technicolor process). There were many changes from the book to the 1939 film. I’m thinking OZ is a prequel to the book rather than the movie? (Sorry, haven’t seen it yet.)
I’ll admit I have yet to read the book myself. Bought it a year or so ago, mean to one of these days, just haven’t yet. But I’ve read a bit about the differences… and my girlfriend read it after I bought it… and we’re rather convinced that this was intended as a prequel to the ’39 film, and any protestations on the part of the film makers to the contrary are for purely legal reasons.
I enjoyed the film over all, but I did have one major problem with it. This is rather spoilery, to warn people who may not have seen the film yet…
Okay, so we have Theadora, who has a rather fierce temper but in general tries to be a good person. She doesn’t know Glinda’s not evil, she doesn’t know her sister is evil and is lying to her… She’s in general trying to do the right thing.
She meets a man, and yes after a few advances on her part, she makes some rather bold assumptions about their relationship… but she is, to be fair, rather naïve on such matters, and other then a brief bit of uncomfortableness this man does NOTHING to dissuade her assumptions.
Then the man goes off without a word to her. Her sister tricks her into thinking he had made advances towards both of them (ironically, the one time Oz HADN’T actually been doing such a thing), and then to top it off she finds out Oz is seemingly hooking up with “evil” Glinda. But wait… Glinda isn’t the evil one, her sister is!
All of this really messes with her head, and understandably so. And then, when Theadora is at her most vulnerable, her sister poisons her with a concoction that accentuates any negativity within her, turning her into a rather familiar green-skinned person.
Now, since this has to lead into the tale we all remember from the original ’39 film, it has to be a forgone conclusion that Theadora / The Wicked Witch of the West cannot find redemption by the end of this film. That would make the events that follow impossible. And also, I am sure that in the time between this film and Dorothy’s eventual visit, our newly Wicked Witch could have done many things to live up to her name and deserve her fate. But, as presented in this film, it all seems like what happens to her is not at all her fault, and is terribly unfair.
Unless one is going to go the route of Wicked and present her as a tragic, unsung hero, one cannot make the Wicked Witch a sympathetic character. It just doesn’t work. It makes everyone else seem like a total áršë for how they treat her. Yes, her sister was certainly meant to be one… But Oz?
True, it could have been intended to be part of his character arc. “He was a jerk in the beginning, but he grew by the end! He even offered her a chance!” Yeah, but some chance he offered her. By then, the damage was done and he had played a big part in inflicting that damage. Him basically then completely destroying her, showing no mercy or sympathy, then basically almost as an afterthought saying, “Oh, but I suppose you didn’t ask for all of the šhìŧ I heaped upon you, so if you want to repent I suppose you can come back.” Yeah, in that context it can be hard for an objective person to figure out if that was a genuine offer of forgiveness or a backhanded rubbing in of a victory, and as the freshly vanquished, Theadora would not likely be seeing it as an offer of forgiveness.
It just really rubbed me the wrong way that they presented her as a character who became what she was through little or no fault of her own, yet with no chance for redemption. She either needed to be evil because she wanted to be (which was not the case as presented here) or she needed to have an opportunity for that redemption (which, given what we know of her fate, is obviously not possible). Otherwise, I thought she was a very distastefully handled character.
Despite the long rant, however… I do stress that overall I liked the film. Just that one element (granted a major one) that didn’t sit well with me.
I can be taught!
After listening to everyone else but your reviews of Speed Racer, and John Carter, and then severely regretting missing them on the big screen, I made sure to convince my family to see Oz on the big screen in 3D.
It was definitely worth it. Thanx for the reccomendation.
Jeff