Oz is your average conman. He runs a "magic" show with a traveling circus and every night makes people believe in his tricks and happily takes their money. Despite all of this he still feels that he hasn't reached his full potential. One morning after angering one of the other performers Oz jumps into a hot air balloon to escape being beaten to death. As he flies away from the circus the hot air balloon gets caught into a twister and he is knocked out after hitting his head. The next morning he wakes up in a strange land. He lands the balloon and begins to wander around until he meets Theodora. She explains to him that he is in the land of Oz and that he has been sent to save the land from the Wicked Witch. Not knowing how to deal with this new found information Oz sets off down the yellow brick towards the Emerald City to see what awaits him there.
What We Think
Reviewed by The North Star
Run Time: 130 Minutes
Rating: PG
When I first saw the trailer for this movie I was really excited. This movie looked awesome and I was glad that they were finally telling the Wizard's story and what happened before Dorothy came to town. The more that I watched the trailer the more disappointed I became. The film started to become cheesier and cheesier the more that I heard about. Even with that in my head I still saw it opening weekend. I should have trusted my gut instinct. This movie was not very good. Extremely average at best. The special effects were cheap, the acting was ehh and it was way too bubbly.
First off, I need to talk about the special effects. Since this movie was produced by Disney I expected everything on the post-production side of things to be very well done because money isn't really an obstacle. Apparently I assumed wrong. It seemed as though EVERYTHING was done on a green screen and no one was ever on a set. The atmosphere of the Oz world was pretty but seemed too impossible. Yes, it's supposed to be other worldly and impossible but they seemed to push the boundaries a little too much. Everything seemed very out of proportion. The flowers were too big. The trees were to big. The animals were too small. I think you get the point. Speaking of animals, one of the main characters in the movie was a monkey who lived in Oz. I never believed for a second that it was an actual monkey. Even though this monkey lived in the crazy world it should still look like a real monkey. I could go on and on about all of the flaws with the specials effects in this movie but after a while it would all begin to sound the same. All that you need to take away from this is that Disney should have either hired people more qualified or given the people they hired more money to do what they needed.
Second, I wish that the cast hadn't been all famous people. Maybe because this was a big budget film and they could get all huge stars? I can understand the main character is an A-list actor but the whole cast? I felt like I was watching Les Miserables again, this time without the singing. Anyways, if a movie is going to have all stars playing the roles could they have picked some better stars? I mean I like Mila Kunis but her acting in this wasn't great. She seemed way to over-the-top and cartoonish. The same goes for Rachel Weisz. She was always an extreme in the movie. She was extremely angry. She was extremely sad. There was never an in-between. Even when she was trying to be sarcastic or even subtle it wouldn't work and it came off as very cheesy. As for James Franco he wasn't on the ball either. I'm pretty neutral when it comes to James Franco but this movie made me lean towards the not liking him side. He was supposed to be playing this sleezy con-man and I never got the feeling that he was sleezy. To me it just felt like he had nothing else better to do than con people. I never thought that he actually enjoyed taking other peoples money, which is what a con-man is supposed to do. Perhaps he didn't do as well because of the director but I will talk about that in the next paragraph. All of the actors unfortunately did along the same lines. Everyone seemed to lack enthusiasm for the movie and their characters. No one stood out as a strong actor and every minute that went by I kept hoping that it would get better and it didn't.
I will keep this next paragraph short because I could talk about it for hours but it's extremely opinionated and it only really has to do with Disney. I wish that the film had been darker. It felt like a lot of fluff to me. As I said above about James Franco he could have been so much creepier. The wicked witches could have been uglier and meaner and actually.....evil. Oz was supposed to be run-down and nasty because the witches were running the land but it seemed perfectly fine to me. All of the things I just mentioned could have made the film 10 times better but if Disney had it in their heads that the target audience was 9-10 year olds then it would make sense for them not to do that. With that in mind, Toy Story is also meant for the younger audiences but I love it and for that fact so does my dad. Just saying.
All in all this movie was not good. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't the WORST thing I have ever seen and I wasn't begging for it to be over but it had a lot of problems that could have been easily fixed. If you have any younger siblings or cousins I would say bring them but don't expect to be as entranced as they are with the merry old land of OZ.
Real Teen Rating~ C- : I’d much rather read a book.
I will keep this next paragraph short because I could talk about it for hours but it's extremely opinionated and it only really has to do with Disney. I wish that the film had been darker. It felt like a lot of fluff to me. As I said above about James Franco he could have been so much creepier. The wicked witches could have been uglier and meaner and actually.....evil. Oz was supposed to be run-down and nasty because the witches were running the land but it seemed perfectly fine to me. All of the things I just mentioned could have made the film 10 times better but if Disney had it in their heads that the target audience was 9-10 year olds then it would make sense for them not to do that. With that in mind, Toy Story is also meant for the younger audiences but I love it and for that fact so does my dad. Just saying.
All in all this movie was not good. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't the WORST thing I have ever seen and I wasn't begging for it to be over but it had a lot of problems that could have been easily fixed. If you have any younger siblings or cousins I would say bring them but don't expect to be as entranced as they are with the merry old land of OZ.
Real Teen Rating~ C- : I’d much rather read a book.
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