Oz the Great and Powerful: A Review

I watched Oz the Great and Powerful last week, and while I wouldn't call the movie terrible, I'm certainly not going to call it good. I wouldn't even recommend it for someone who's bored. It's definitely a movie, and there are some good bits, but mostly there are bits where James Franco is just James Franco.

Let's take a look.

The things I liked: I thought Zach Braff did a good job. Even though the monkey effects weren't amazing, I thought the character was interesting. He is a driving force in changing Oz's ways from being a selfish son of a bitch to the kind-hearted fraud (a supposed good thing). He's got heart and humor, and then mysteriously disappears from any key moments as soon as Glinda is introduced. I was disappointed because the slave/master-friend/friend dynamic was a lot more interesting than the "I think this girl is pretty and I hope I can impress her" one.

As far as effects go, they were shitty. But the porcelain girl looked great. There was a nice tactile quality to the character and Joey King was a fantastic voice actor, bringing the character full circle. We need to get this thirteen-year-old more work! She destroyed Franco in the acting realm! (Not that it's hard). Monkey and Porcelain Girl were the two best parts of this movie, and without them the entire thing would have been a complete bust (even with Rachel Wiesz, but more on this later).

Every twenty minutes or so we'd get a little taste of the Raimi charm. He'd toss in a signature shot with a skewed filter on the lens, or a quick camera movement to disorient the audience. Every strange shot he was able to put in made me yell, "Raimi!" I just wish Disney would have let him put more of himself into this movie.

The black and white 4X3 segment at the beginning was well done. I liked the way they used this to move us into the story and mythology of Oz. It was a highlight, getting my hopes up for the inevitable  letdown of a movie that followed.

 (Interesting note: Warner Bros. actually owns most of the iconic elements from the 1939 picture, which made tying this film in with the other story a bit more difficult. They were not able to use the ruby red slippers or the specific green for the Wicked Witch.)

Now, what I didn't like: James Franco, of course. I'd like to make something clear, though. I don't think Franco is a terrible actor (even if he can be at times). I liked him in 127 Hours and Pineapple Express. What I think Franco is terrible at is being a human being. He's arrogant, fake, and unprofessional. Sadly, shitty qualities like these can bleed onto the screen when he's trying to act. When you watch a movie like Oz you can understand why his professor gave him a D. There's no disputing the fairness of this grade when you have evidence like Oz the Great and Powerful. We don't have Franco in Milk here, rather we have another Rise of the Planet of the Apes (AKA: the worst). It's unfortunate considering there are two extremely talented actresses. Rachel Wiesz and Michelle Williams do what they do best: act the shit out of their roles. The problem is because of the good job they're doing, we can see how bad of a job Franco and Mila Kunis are doing. The conflict in quality leads each scene to be weighted unevenly, thus making it obvious to the audience that we are just watching a movie. There isn't any magic to pull us in emotionally, and in the end, this is the major flaw to the picture.

I give this movie a C-

The Hobbit: A Review

by Joe

I'm going to go ahead and say that I haven't read the The Hobbit novel. Yes, so this review isn't really how well they adapted the book, but rather it's looking at the movie on its own. Which probably isn't a good thing.

Like I said before, I didn't feel like I really needed to watch hobbits and dwarves walk around for another twelve hours. At this point I've sunk another three hours of my life into watching these bitches walk around. The majority of the movie is Gandalf yelling run, and then all the shorter dudes start running through the woods. What does this mean? The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is exactly what I thought it was going to be.

It starts off with broad strokes and explanation of blood-lines and dwarf history. The audience gets caught up with major motivations for later characters at the beginning. This takes about fifteen minutes. Then we're stuck with what felt like forty-five minutes of dwarves overtaking Bilbo's house. They just eat and burp and Bilbo asks them to stop. For forty-five fucking minutes. In retrospect, I realize it was probably closer to thirty minutes, but still much too long to explain the basic concept of the journey. Bilbo is the chosen fourteenth member, but he says 'no thanks.' Then he thinks about it. Will he or won't he? Oh, he does.

They set off and encounter trolls and orcs and we get some more back story on Thorin. Some albino orc really fucking hates him. And Thorin the dwarf hates the orc back. So there is some history. They want to kill each other so bad! They talk with some elves, then walk into a mountain that is filled with goblins. And (if you've seen the trailers) this is where Bilbo comes into contact with Gollum and it starts to feel a lot like a prequel, which I realize it kind of is, but at the same time kind of isn't.

The basic premise of the movie: let's get to a mountain to reclaim the Dwarf homeland.

Here are my issues: this fucker is long. Along with being long, it meanders through most the scenes and it just feels like they wanted to get past the two and a half hour mark as some sort of justification for making three movies. Because the scenes tend to run on the long side the movie gets boring.

At times the effects look dated. I mean, The Lord of the Rings was a game changer when it comes to CGI, and The Hobbit won't have the same classification. I will say, though, when Gollum is on screen the effects are breathtaking. There are moments when they've outdone themselves, but it seems like they focused on select scenes while quickly putting together others. The inconsistency was distracting to me.

And now the things I liked: Martin Freeman is the shit! I thought he did such a wonderful job as Bilbo. He was by far my favorite part of the movie. The scene when he meets up with Gollum was filled with scene chewing, but instead of rolling my eyes I bought into it. It was the only time I didn't mind Peter Jackson running the clock out. Freeman fits in so well with all the LotR members that you would have assumed he was always a part of it.

The last forty minutes are quick moving with a lot of action. Then there are also bits of calm when Bilbo's character is changing and it starts bringing the whole ensemble together. I just wish they could have kept it as two movies to make the stories a bit more fluid.

Anyone is excited for this flick won't be disappointed. It has pretty much everything I imagine a Hobbit fan to hope for, but it kept running its wheels a bit too much for me. My favorite part of the whole thing? The Pacific Rim trailer.