Film Review: Oz The Great and Powerful (2013)

Shockingly enough, I’ve only watched the 1933 original ‘Wizard of Oz’, within the last week. I’d been told on many occasions how mad I was for missing out, and to a certain extent I agree. Whilst I’m not mad on musicals, which it clearly is, the world of Oz and some of the ‘sci-fi’ elements intrigued me, how did Dorothy get to Oz? What is the Wizard’s mystery? What happened to the witches? The mythology was interesting to say the least, and the questions begin to be answered in this prequel, starring James Franco as the eccentric wizard.

‘Oz The Great and Powerful’, is 2013’s first big blockbuster and it tells, with a wealth of special effects in hand to give justice to the series, and star power behind and in front of the camera means that the budget is a bulky £200 million, a figure already surpassed worldwide, showing it was a good gamble by Disney. Sam Raimi is said talent behind the camera, the man behind the ‘Original Spider-Man Trilogy‘, as it is now ridiculously known, and also the brains behind the original ‘Evil Dead’ series of comedy-horror’s, which are ALSO being remade. Perhaps one day, his prequel to ‘Oz’, will too.

James Franco is our anti-hero, a man who’s devious inability to produce magic doesn’t stop him from putting on a show. He’s part of a travelling circus, ably supported by his right-hand man and ‘Scrubs’ favourite, Zach Braff and reconvening with a love interest (Michelle Williams) every time he visits Kansas, before a twister engulfs them all, sending Franco and co to the mystical land of Oz. During this prologue, the colour and aspect ratio replicate that of the 1933 classic, being in black and white and a tiny screen ratio of just 4:3, similarly to 2012’s ‘The Artist’. Then, as Franco enters Oz in his hot air balloon, the screen slowly stretches out and a glorious range of vibrant colours fill the screen. It’s a great moment, that had it not been included in the trailer, would have even more of an effect than it does end up having.

The story slowly speeds up,with characters introduced and established. Again another slice of continuity from the original film, is that characters have dual roles in Kansas and Oz, so Braff, the Wizard’s long-suffering assistant, becomes Findley the monkey, whom accompanies the Wizard on his trek to the Emerald Kingdom. Braff is the able comic relief who plays well against the eccentric antics of his master, the character is by far the funniest in the film and is well-used in the initial first half of the film, before slowly dropping off the closer the film comes to a resolution. Michelle Williams, goes from love-interest to one of the three Witches, alongside actress of the moment, Mila Kunis and the capable Rachel Weisz. The film does a good job of disguising their true identities. I’m not going to spoil anything regarding them, but it’s a good little mystery as to who is the true evil one of the trio.

A character I haven’t yet mentioned is the porcelain girl, a sure fire Disney hit, they can sell a bunch of these! Voiced by Joey Page, who plays a disabled girl back in Kansas, her porcelain form sees Oz actually manage to fix her legs, and she also joins her hero on his journey down the yellow brick road. If the monkey is the comic relief, the doll is the character to pull on audience’s heartstrings as a hurt, lonely figure who had her village destroyed by the evil witch.

The plot isn’t the most important thing here, it lacks a bit of ‘oomph’ instead staying at a journey movie, as the Wizard is aiming to reach his ‘rightful’ throne as the prophetic saviour of Oz, it’s all about the interesting characters and this return to the environment that many loved, to see how well it can be replicated with modern technology. Subtle nuances will give long-standing fans a good time, when they get to see the Munchkins, the Emerald City and various little nods to the previous films, they will be ecstatic for sure!

Overall, ‘Oz’, is a solid film. It’s villains may be tangled in a web of mystery, but when they are revealed the transformation is incredible. Franco is excellent in his titular role, and it is probably a good thing it has beaten the Summer rush of superhero flicks and comedies, as, for now, it stands way above other releases, in the stationary gap between Oscars and Summer. And with future sequel-prequel ‘things’ penciled in for the near future, Disney has revitalized the ‘Oz’, franchise in one successful, swoop.

8/10.

Top 10 Anticipated Films of 2013 (Part 1)

Most Anticipated Films of 2013

It’s a little bit late, but here is a quick look at my top 10 Movies of 2013…

10. Warm Bodies

When I first heard the announcement of a book called ‘Warm Bodies’, being turned into a film, I took note, hearing of it’s ‘different’ plot of a zombie with, sort of, a heart and a conscience. I subsequently bought the book and devoured it in a week or so. It’s a great, if not clichéd story, and at times throughout the book I could visualize it, as a film, and it could be great. Judging by the first trailer, below, it looks like a combo of drama and comedy that such a situation threatened to have. Despite it being described as ”Twilight with zombies’, which the b0ok didn’t strike me as being true, and with a release date the week before Valentines Day in the UK, it could do big business with the same sort of audience, who will be looking for a new supernatural hero to worship. ‘R’, played by ‘Skins’ favourite Nicholas Hoult, could be the zombie tweens would die for (geddit?!).

9. Monsters University

A strange choice for an 18 year old lad, you may think, but ‘Monsters Inc’, was a film released at the height of my childhood, and captivated me. As with many Pixar films, it was great for kids and adults, meaning I even like to watch it every now and then nowadays! And I fully expect screenings of the long-awaited prequel to packed full of the supposed ‘target audience’ of children and parents, aswell as teens and young adults, who worshipped Sully and Mike the first time around, like myself. Very little has been revealed about the film, bar a couple of teaser trailers and a funny ‘university’ style ad for the titular, University in the film, but so long as it carries with it the same spirit as the first film, it’ll all be good. A sneaky cameo (somehow?!) by everyone’s favourite human ‘Boo’, would be great too, go on Pixar you know you want to!

8. Django Unchained

Having literally JUST seen the film today on it’s UK release, I can confirm that my suspicions of this being one of the biggest and best films of the year were true, ‘Django Unchained’, is one of Tarantino’s best yet. It’s a typically daring project for the divisive director, who follows up the time-bending ‘Inglorious Basterds’, with his brutal slavery-based spaghetti-western. Jamie Foxx, Christoph Waltz, Leonardo DiCaprio, Samuel L. Jackson and Kerry Washington all star in a, a times hard watch, but it needs to be to display and show up the horrors that black men and women had to face in the 19th century. Also divisive will be the excessive use of the n-word, something often brought up when Tarantino’s films are being discussed, and whilst it is a sticking point, and at times really not needed, it has its place whilst the director works to create a haunting recreation of those dark days a couple of centuries ago. I’ll go into further detail in my review, but Django certainly deserves his place on this list.

7.  Into the Wonder

This only came up on my radar the other day, with it’s stunning trailer (below) spellbinding to the senses. The music astounding, and something I personally LOVE in a film, the shots, as artistic and beautiful as it gets for a Terence Malick film, and the voiceover from star Javier Bardem haunting. All of it came together nicely, and has got me interested, interested in the same way it’s predecessor, and supposed companion piece, ‘The Tree of Life’, did, which incidentally I didn’t get round to seeing. ‘To the Wonder’, may well go the same way, but with one of my favourite actors of the moment, Javier Bardem, present, a well-shot, well-scored drama could be right up my street. It’s Spring release will see whether I get round to seeing it or not, but it looks very, very promising at the minute, with critically acclaimed director/star Ben Affleck, Rachel McAdams and Olga Kurylenko joining Bardem, along with Mailck, one of the most highly regarded directors of all time.

6. The World’s End

The third and final part of the much acclaimed, and bizarrely titled, Cornetto trilogy, The World’s End, sees buddies Simon Pegg, Nick Frost and Edgar Wright teaming up once again, this time turning their thinly veiled parody with apocalyptic movies. ‘Shaun of the Dead’, and ‘Hot Fuzz’, were excellent films in their own rights, aswell as cracking takes on the zombie and buddy-cop genres, and ending it with an apocalyptic theme seems just right.

It’s great to see how far the trio have come since ‘Shaun’, too, with Simon Pegg, almost capable of leading a Hollywood movie all on his own, and supporting roles in big franchises, ‘Mission Impossible’, and ‘Star Trek’. Nick Frost has stayed closer to his roots, with parts in British films, ‘Attack the Block’ and ‘The Boat That Rocked’, but mixing it up with ‘Tintin’ and ‘Snow White and the Huntsman’. Director Edgar Wright has also made a strong name for himself with the stylish ‘Scott Pilgrim vs the World’ and the upcoming Marvel adaptation of ‘Ant-Man’. So as a result of this bizarre trilogy, three solid careers have been made, but most importantly, genuinely brilliant films in their own right have brought laughter to the millions.

This outing throws ‘The Office’ and new Hollywood Hobbit, Martin Freeman into the mix aswell as the great Paddy Considine, as they join Pegg and Frost on the bar crawl to end all bar crawls, as the world is conveniently ending simultaneously. It’s going to be a cracker!

The second part of my preview for the new year’s films is coming soon!

Top 10 Films of 2012 (Part 1)

Films of 2012

2012 has been a vintage year for film, for both blockbusters and indie flicks, so here are my top 10!

10. The Master

The film I was most unsure about, and, in truth, if I’d seen a couple of films (‘Argo’ and ‘Beasts of the Southern Wild’ I think), this probably wouldn’t feature in my top 10. However, the performances of Joaquin Phoenix and Philip Seymour Hoffman are not to be underestimated, the pair shining as patient and the titular ‘Master’. Phoenix is a big nervous man, unsure of the world after returning home from war, not fitting in anywhere, until he meets Hoffman, a leader of a Scientology-eque (is that a word?!) cult. The story is long, drawn out and at times, boring, something director Paul Thomas Anderson needs to brush up on a bit, but the cinematography, attention to detail and score mark this up. The motorcycle scene, managing to track the main pair as they blast along a desert, is breath-taking. Not a cinematic masterpiece by any stretch, but an interesting mess? Yes, sounds about right.

9. 21 Jump Street

Whoever would’ve thought Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill would be 2012’s most hilarious double act?! Not me that’s for sure, but the two had audiences in stitches with great roles in cop-comedy ‘21 Jump Street’. It’s self-aware, sweary,but most of all, just really funny! Hill and Tatum, freshly-qualified as a couple of cops are drafted into a programme that sees them go covertly undercover in high-school, with the aim of busting a drugs ring that is killing kids. The story rarely allows it to be come dark and grim though, with one of the 4 stages of the drug known as ‘Tripping Major Ballsack’, as bigger indication as any of the type of humour. It did, unexpectedly, make my family laugh though, so the appeal is there. In any other year, ’21 Jump Street’, would be my top comedy of 2012, however this year has been a good one for the genre…

8. Moonrise Kingdom

Wes Anderson has always been a Marmite filmmaker for many, myself included, his works often derided for their lack of personality, emotions and general plot. Infact, I used to defend his own ‘The Life Aquatic’, until a recent watch proved it to be shallow and just plain old boring. However, the stop animation style of ‘Fantastic Mr Fox’, showed a different side to Anderson, and I loved it. So, going into ‘Moonrise Kingdom’, starring his favoured alumni, Murray, Schwartzmann, Balaban, with a few extras in the shape of Bruce Willis and Tilda Swinton, I was filled with trepidation, hoping not to be desperately disappointed. And I wasn’t.

For, ‘Moonrise Kingdom’, is a great piece of work, tackling love with its two lead young newcomers, whose characters are complicated and wise, despite their youthful appearances, whilst the glittering cast of adults are merely reduced to acting like kids. It’s a smart twist, as they instigate a search party for the pair of child runaways, but find themselves to be complicated too, Willis has an affair with the girl’s mother, Murray is an closed-off father, and Ed Norton is a fantastic scout leader, who genuinely cares for his troop, but can be reduced to tears within seconds by a superior scout leader! Everyone has issues, as is the case with many Wes Anderson films, but it all amounts to a happy, beautiful-to-look-at film, worthy of tonnes of praise. Let’s hope Anderson can continue his recent hot streak, and not get caught up in his own hype.

7. Looper

I wouldn’t have expected ‘Looper’ to have charted this high when I first saw the trailer, sure it looked good, but good at the most, I mean when has their ever been a good time-travelling film?! However, it blew me away, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Bruce Willis, again?!, lighting up the screen with their joint-portrayal of ‘looper’ Joe. It manages to incorporate a time-travel plot line successfully, with an opening monologue explaining the concept in a couple of minutes, but the plot moves about, so you genuinely don’t know where it’s going next, a good thing in this! Supporting turns by Emily Blunt and the best child-actor I’ve ever seen in a film, add to the concoction, with a genuinely surprising ending, that is daring, something many modern-day films wouldn’t have done, and all credit must go to director Rian Johnson, a man who must be on the shortlists for many of the big studios next big pictures, as a result.

6. Prometheus

Whilst many were let down by Ridley Scott’s long-awaited, is it a prequel or a sequel, to ‘Alien’, I enjoyed it immensely! Sure it wasn’t anything like its predecessor, but I think you’d have been a bit silly to have expected a carbon copy of such an iconic film. What we got added to the mythology in spades, with a lot of mystery and action throughout, complimenting each other well. The beginning is slightly stodgy, taking a while to kick in, especially on repeat viewings, but when we get going, we definitely get going! There’s a lot I don’t want to spoil just in case, but s**t goes happen to the crew of the ‘Prometheus’ crew, as they are sabotaged from within, and from dormant beasts. A couple of scenes in particular, one involving a caesarian of an alien creature and the ever-present android, David, played by the magnificent Michael Fassbender, as he causes such events, are brilliant.

Fassbender is the best here, but is complimented by a wealth of talent, both male and female. Idris Elba, the ship’s captain, and a man given the role of leading a blockbuster all by himself in next summer’s ‘Pacific Rim’, original ‘Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’, Noomi Rapace, who aside from a dodgy English accent, does the job. Charlize Theron, the second of her big roles of the year, as an is she or isn’t she robot, along with Guy Pearce as a stationary old man, the man who sent them on their journey to the deep reaches of space. ‘Prometheus’, is almost as epic as it gets, and, again, isn’t a complete masterpiece, but I enjoyed it very much!

Part 2 of 2012 is coming soon!

Film Review: Prometheus (2012)

“Prometheus” is incredible. It’s a grand, epic thrill ride from start to finish that rarely lets up in terms of shock and mystery, whist still managing to tend to the storyline in such a great way. For those wanting answers from the “Alien” franchise here in “Prometheus”, you’re going to be disappointed, for the film creates (and answers) more of its own, as director Ridley Scott aims to create a new, modern-day franchise to scare a whole new generation. For me, someone who has only seen the original “Alien” film once, and only recently, I really enjoyed “Prometheus”. It felt fresh and exciting, almost a reboot of the classics, as there were obvious links to each other, but rather than the two sets of films being brothers or sisters, they were more distant relatives, sharing the same strands of DNA (you’ll get it if you’ve seen it!). The film’s open ending too, gives hope for sequel to finish off theories and unanswered questions that currently plague the Internet.

The set up is this, then: Dr’s Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace) and Charlie Holloway (Logan Marshall-Green) have made several discoveries on Earth, linking several ancient civilisations to a set of star constellations. They see it as an ‘invitation’ to find out who our creators were. Thus, a band of hardy wealthy-hungry mercenaries are recruited and shipped off to the distant stars, to answer the ultimate question: who created humans?

Obviously, you have to go with the film to be able to properly enjoy it, whatever you are religiously, forget it! In fact, several of the film’s characters have mini-discussions about how discoveries effect their various beliefs, which is interesting for the reasons that it is human nature, and something real people would do. The characters were diverse in range, with the aforementioned scientist couple, played excellently by Swedish “Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” Rapace, and relative newcomer Marshall-Green, really excited about the possibilities, the pilot of the craft, Idris Elba, seemingly non too plussed about the whole journey, despite the fact it’s cost him 2 years of his lifetime through sleeping to get there! We have the ice-cold Charlize Theron in another hard, tight-lipped role for the second week running, following the previous ‘Queen’ role in “Snow White & the Huntsman”, as a Weyland (the company who ran the mission) executive, who has strict orders not to interact with any life-forms they may find, a couple of generic, greedy engineers and David.

David is the best character in the film, BY FAR. Michael Fassbender, who is fast becoming the world’s finest actor, tears the screen apart as android David, who we first experience as the sole inhabiter of the titular ship, as the rest of the crew sleep. We watch as his creepy movements are performed to perfection, and he interacts with the environment around him, delving into his crews brains as he goes, watching classic films, casually playing basketball whilst riding a bike and brushing up on his ancient languages, like you do. He’s a mysterious character, who everyone seems on edge with, never quite trusting, not knowing his motives, or indeed, if he haves any motives. The audience may expect him to be distant, attached from the rest of the group, perhaps an elaborate scienceexperiment, but during the movie we find him to be one of the most human of the lot. For further evidence of just what an excellent performance Fassbender made, and for David’s creepiness levels, check out his advert, released as a viral video for “Prometheus'” promotion.

The film’s plot is always transparent, we know what the crew’s goal is right from the off, and the shocks, thrills and spills that follow them are intoxicating. Yes, at times, it plays upon the audience, making them wait for the next potential outburst of violence, and Scott has a fine tendency to switch wildly from various groups of the crew, to the other, to the ship and back again. However, it isn’t a massive issue and you soon get used to the quick, back-and-forth nature of the narrative. I won’t go into specific plot details, as you’ll want to go into the film as cold as possible on information, but it is brilliant. The revelations are shocking, but require the audience to create their own answers to a few questions, some that may be brought up in a potential pre-sequel (see what I did there?!) and some that may not. Some say this is a result of writer Damon Lindelof, of “Lost” fame, influence on the script, as that series was full of twists and turns, that some say, were never truly resolved. Again though, there’s nothing mind-bendingly awful about it at all, nothing that’ll make you come storming out of the cinema in rage. The film’s horrific moments are good too, with a few jumps, splattering’s of gore, but most importantly, tension, a device rarely used in mainstream, blockbuster films, which, with a budget of $140m, is what “Prometheus” is. At a 15 certificate it pushes the boundaries, but just about manages it, I do wonder with a rumoured 30 minutes cut from the film, already a meaty 2hours long, could we see a truly epic, 2 and half hour, 18 rated uncut edition released that would satisfy disgruntled “Alien” fans?

“Prometheus” is an excellent film and caters to different audiences rather well, not treating them like total idiots, but as intelligent human beings. The story is ambitious and grand in scale, but, in my opinion, manages to pull it off, delivering a tightly bound film, that will entertain and scare in moderation. Oh and if there’s any further doubt as to whether “Prometheus”, is a prequel or not, just wait till the very, very end.

9/10