Oz the Great and Powerful (2013)
Directed by Sam Raimi
Oscar Diggs, a small-time circus illusionist and con-artist, is whisked from Kansas to the Land of Oz where the inhabitants assume he's the great wizard of prophecy, there to save Oz from the clutches of evil.
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9 films that influenced Oz the Great and Powerful
What critics say influenced Oz the Great and Powerful
It will remind you of Tim Burton’s “Alice in Wonderland,” but it’s much better than that.
And it’s all punctuated by a Danny Elfman score that serves as a reminder of how similar this effects-laden extravaganza is to the latter-day (and mediocre) work of Elfman’s frequent collaborator, Tim Burton – specifically, 2010’s “Alice in Wonderland,” also from Disney.
A not-so-subtle attempt by the Mouse House to cash in on the success of “Alice in Wonderland,” “Oz the Great and Powerful” feels like more of a sequel to that film than anything resembling Victor Fleming’s seminal classic “The Wizard of Oz,” no matter how many cheeky references are crammed into the story.
The end result is something akin to Tim Burtons “Alice in Wonderland,” which had a similar problem with hyper-detailed, brightly colored backgrounds becoming a messy smudge whenever theres any 3D action.
Unlike such financial bombs as John Carter, Battleship and the recent Jack the Giant Slayer, this Oz prequel will likely be a box office champion — parent company Disney is obviously hoping for grosses to match those of its 2010 offering Alice in Wonderland, Tim Burton's occasionally magical but more often misguided reworking of a beloved fantasy franchise.
“Oz the Great and Powerful” is headed to the dust bin of misguided attempts to replicate the recent billion-dollar success of Tim Burton’s “Alice in Wonderland.”
Instead, we get a CGI'd, green-screened and Disneyfied horse of a different color that combines an "Alice in Wonderland" plot and an "Avatar" landscape with the witches of "Charmed" and Disney's anthropomorphism and theme-park tendencies.
“Oz the Great and Powerful,” on the other hand, looks like someone combined the looks of Victor Fleming’s 1939 classic, the aforementioned “Alice,” “Lord of the Rings” and “Avatar” and pressed “pulverize.”
And though a vista that suggests Monument Valley with snow has startling splendor, other landscapes seem borrowed from Avatar, and a waterfall plunge suggests only the prototype for a Disney World thrill ride, without the thrills.
More impressively, Oz the Great and Powerful may well be the first movie since Avatar to fully exploit 3D’s potential as a “wonder delivery device” for the entire length of the movie.
Much like in “Avatar,” it’s almost too much to take in at first.
It’s difficult to rouse an audience with something new and different these days, but Raimi and company have pulled it off, and much of the credit goes to production designer Robert Stromberg, who won Oscars for his work on Avatar and the 2010 Alice in Wonderland.
…serves as a fascinating rumination on the current state of GLBT acceptance in society via a graphic re-creation of missing footage from 1980’s controversial Cruising .
The banter is snappy and mischievous in the way it teases out their differing world views, echoing the 2007 Amy Adams vehicle Enchanted .
You watch them all and long for the funhouse purity of Enchanted, which had the starriness of Amy Adams, the starrishness of James Marsden, and a ripe target: the fairy-tale industrial complex.
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Oz The Great And Powerful tries to be many things at once: A PG-rated Army Of Darkness with a modern jester whisked off to another world for a fantasy adventure; an immersive 3-D wonderment along the lines of Alice In Wonderland or Hugo ; a prequel to L. Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard Of Oz that has Shrek ’s winking attitude while paying faithful homage to the marvels and mythology of The Wizard Of Oz , perhaps the greatest of all Hollywood spectacles.
Oz has landed in Oz, and so much for thinking that director Sam Raimi was going to try something like Martin Scorsese's Hugo .
It's the kind of things (throwing things at the camera, first person "rides") one would expect out of a 3D 5 years ago before the likes of Hugo showed us that the technology can legitimately be used before.
If you liked Hugo you’ll be pleased with Oz’s coterie of zoopraxiscopes and praxinoscopes and zoetropes (Oh, my!).
Cinematography by Peter Deming ("The Cabin in the Woods"), production design by Robert Stromberg ( "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End" as concept artist ), set decoration by Nancy Haigh and costume design by Gary Jones are a few of the components of "Oz the Great and Powerful"'s amazing cinema sorcery.
Raimi's frequent off-beat sensibilities might have become suffocated under a blanket of superficial CGI, but he doesn't let that happen, he and cinematographer Peter Deming (2012's " The Cabin in the Woods ") merging the practical with the not-really-there and avoiding flash cutting so as to allow audiences to drink in the sights without feeling toyed with.
A movie which remains true to the spirit of its source material while entertaining and delighting, it’s the best kids’ flick to come along since 2011’s The Muppets bopped into our hearts.
Confirming that every worthy man needs a little help from time to time, he gets just that in the form of angelic witch Glinda (Michelle Williams, in a dual role), monkey Finley (voice of Zach Braff), and an orphaned little girl made of china (voice of Joey King) who is likewise in search of a place to call home."Oz the Great and Powerful" opens with sumptuous opening credits and a bang-up orchestration from composer Danny Elfman (2012's " Dark Shadows "), then follows that with a loving throwback to "The Wizard of Oz" by keeping in the same dusty, black-and-white style as its vintage forefather.
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The thing starts as a travelogue, and ends in a sequence where, for the like, 18th time since Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire , two people shoot magical beams at each other that meet in the middle and cause an explosion.