My Review: Oz the Great and Powerful (6/10)

¨I don’t want to be a good man. I want to be a great one.¨

It´s no easy task to make a prequel of the successful and timeless 1939 family classic, The Wizard of Oz, but Sam Raimi (director of the Spider Man trilogy and The Evil Dead) was up to the task. Raimi does pay a wonderful homage to some of the iconic images of the classical movie thanks to some great and colorful visual effects, but the story doesn’t work as well. It is kind of the same problem I had with Tim Burton´s Alice in Wonderland where the story doesn’t match to the wondrous visuals. I still had a fun time with this film as the nostalgia ended up playing a key role here. The screenplay was co-written by Mitchell Kapner (The Whole 9 Yards) and David Lindsay-Abaire (Rabbit Hole), adapted from L. Frank Baum´s novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Despite not having a great story, it does become suspenseful towards the end and hooked my attention. The opening sequences however were slow and lacked a decent pacing. The visuals end up being a distraction over the impoverished story, but kids will enjoy this film nonetheless. Parents will also be entertained and filled with nostalgia like I was; but it will be inevitable to compare this movie to the classical one, and it does fall short story wise. You still have to take your hat off to Sam Raimi who took the risk and came up with a decent film, but somehow in a cinematic world where we are used to seeing visual spectacles like Hogwarts, Middle Earth, and Narnia you can´t carry a film on the visuals alone. You need compelling characters, and unfortunately here the most memorable characters are unlikely ones (a porcelain doll and a winged monkey).

The film focuses its attention on Oz, short for Oscar Diggs (James Franco), a circus magician from Kansas who ends up being blown away by a tornado to the wonderful land of Oz. Once he arrives at Oz, he meets a beautiful witch named Theodora (Mila Kunis) who explains how they have been waiting for him because a prophecy claims that a wizard would arrive at Oz and defeat the evil witch who poisoned her own father, the king of Emerald City. The long awaited wizard could become King if he is able to defeat the witch and protect the land. Oz, who isn’t a very moral fellow, is interested in becoming great so he accepts as long as he can keep all the gold. He ignores telling her that he isn’t actually a real wizard. What Theodora and Oz don’t know is that her sister, Evanora (Rachel Weisz), has lied to everyone in Emerald City about the evil witch Glinda (Michelle Williams). Evanora is actually the evil witch who is trying to get rid of Glinda and take over Oz. During his mission Oz runs into some unlikely allies like Finley (Zach Braff) a winged monkey and a porcelain doll named China Girl (Joey King) before discovering the truth about Glinda and Evanora. This is the story of Oz and how he came to this land and made a name for himself.

  

There isn’t much greatness about Oz, but the story still works as pure entertainment for the family. There seems to be an underlying silly tone to the whole movie and James Franco knows it and plays along with his role. He doesn’t seem to be taking himself too seriously and neither should we. This isn’t a classical film, but it does remind us of the magical 1939 film and that alone makes this worth the while. Disney has us used to these clichés about believing in ourselves and achieving our dreams, and Oz is full of them. The film continually reminds us that it could have been much better, but the magic still seems to be present. The best characters are the ones voiced by Zach Braff and Joey King. They have the funniest scenes and make the movie much more enjoyable. Michelle Williams is also a pleasure to watch as the sweet and innocent Glinda. There isn’t really much more I can say about this film, if you are a fan of the original film then you might want to see this for pure nostalgic reasons but don’t expect it to be as good as that classic movie. It has its moments and overall it is an enjoyable and entertaining movie.

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My Review: The Bourne Legacy (8/10)

¨Jason Bourne was just the tip of the iceberg. ¨

It´s been five years since the third film of the Bourne franchise came out, now Tony Gilroy has been given the responsibility to direct The Bourne Legacy, a film that works as both sort of a spin-off and sequel to the Paul Greengrass franchise. As opposed to the other films this one does not star Matt Damon and wasn´t adapted from Robert Ludlum´s novel either. It just takes some aspects of the previous films and expands it by introducing a new corporation and new characters. Jason Bourne is only named in this film and the events occur at the same time as the events from The Bourne Ultimatum are taking place. I wasn’t too sure about what to expect from this film since Matt Damon was the true star of the franchise, but I knew Jeremy Renner was a great actor. Matt Damon´s career changed completely with this franchise, and he has made a name for himself now in Hollywood. Renner has also been on a hot streak ever since The Hurt Locker starring in some great films like The Town, Mission Impossible, and The Avengers so I did think he would be able to pull it off. My main concern had to do with the new director, Tony Gilroy, who I knew was very familiar with the franchise since he adapted the screenplay from the previous films, but wasn’t sure he could pull off a spin off like this without the main star. Many people hated this film and I understand them, but I enjoyed this spy thriller quite a bit. Gilroy had already proved to be a good director when he was nominated for his work in Michael Clayton. This film may lack some of the great action editing scenes from its predecessor, but it was still a very well made action thriller.

As I mentioned before the story expands from the Jason Bourne universe and this film takes place at a parallel time while the events from The Bourne Ultimatum are taking place since Jason Bourne is referenced throughout the movie as he begins to expose Treadstone. What we learn from The Bourne Legacy is that Treadstone isn’t the only secret ops agency and that there are many more. One of those ops is Outcome, where some subjects are given medication to enhance their abilities. When Treadstone is exposed, the rest of the agencies decide it is in their best interest to sweep things under the rug and therefore begin killing off all their agents. One of the agents from Outcome, Aaron Cross (Jeremy Renner) manages to survive and begins looking for answers as to why his former bosses want him dead. Col. Eric Byer (Edward Norton) on the other hand is trying to control this crisis situation by eliminating anyone who is familiar with the Outcome program. He is one of the top men from the intelligence community that is after Aaron. Aaron, who is dependant of the special medication in order to survive, enlists the help of one of the doctor´s that has managed to escape from Outcome. Marta (Rachel Weisz) convinces Aaron that she can help him get off the special medication, but they will have to travel to Manila. The only problem is that the intelligence community will do whatever is necessary to eliminate them before they can get too far.

I don’t think The Bourne Legacy is as good as its predecessors, but it isn’t a bad film either. There are a lot of new characters introduced at the beginning of the film and if you are not familiar with the original trilogy then you might get a bit lost since they kind of take a while to introduce the new premise. The film also seems to be building up to another sequel where we might have Jason Bourne introduced back to the equation, but the film does also work on its own. It’s hard to avoid comparisons since both films take place in the same universe, but I do believe it does a good enough job to stand up a little below the previous films. I honestly had a very fun time with the film and enjoyed the Renner/Weisz duo. The story also takes place in different parts of the globe kind of like in the same way the other films did. The action scenes were entertaining so I do believe this was a worthy film and wasn’t a disgrace to the original trilogy like many upset fans are saying it was. Everyone is entitled to their opinion and I can understand how some people may be upset, but I did have a fun time with this film and enjoyed it so I´m giving it a thumbs up.

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My Review: Dream House (5/10)

¨Once upon a time, there were two girls who lived in a house¨

I was really disappointed with the trailer of Dream House. It gave away too much and I would`ve preferred not to know as much as I did going into the movie because the first 45 minutes of the film are totally wasted thanks to the trailer which gave away the twist that happens about midway through the movie. I have no idea what the producers were thinking about when they did this. I don`t know if it was because of the trailer, but everything was obvious and predictable from the beginning which took away much of the suspense and thrills. If you haven’t seen the trailer going into this movie then I think you`re better off, but I still wouldn`t recommend this film unless you are a fan of any of the actors or Oscar nominated director Jim Sheridan. Sheridan is known for making hit or miss films; his latest films Brothers was great, but before that he directed the mediocre Get Rich or Die Tryin. One thing is for sure, he always works with some talented actors; and that is perhaps the best thing about Dream House, its cast: Daniel Craig, Naomi Watts, and Rachel Weisz. The weakest link is the script which could have been great if written by a talented writer, but David Louka isn`t known for writing interesting scripts. The story had a lot of potential, but the delivery was just poor and everything became predictable. The film was saved from disaster by the strong cast, but I still wasn`t pleased with the end product.

Will Atenton (Daniel Craig) decides to quit his publishing job in the big city and move to a quiet country house with his wife Libby (Rachel Weisz), and two daughters Trish (Taylor Geare) and Dee Dee (Claire Geare) and becoming a writer. They seem to be living a perfect life, but one night one of his daughters claims she`s seen a man outside staring at the house. At first Will doesn’t pay attention, but after beginning to see things himself he begins investigating the house. Someone is definitely outside stalking the place. He discovers that about five years ago a family was murdered in that very house: a young wife, two daughters, and the father who became the prime suspect. His name was Peter Ward and police never seemed to gather enough evidence to lock him in, but he was institutionalized at a mental hospital. Will begins investigating and discovers that Peter has been released from the institution and is convinced that is the man who has been threatening his home. In the meantime his neighbor, Ann (Naomi Watts), seems to know what happened that terrible night but isn`t willing to tell him the whole truth. As Will continues to uncover the secrets that the house hides he begins making some unsettling revelations.

Dream House is a very predictable film and in my opinion the cast was wasted in this film because they could have made a much more interesting thriller with a decent script. Instead the producers ended up making a movie we`ve seen hundreds of times before. It was a cheap imitation of Scorcese`s Shutter Island. I couldn’t help but compare what was going on with so many other similar films. Ever since The Sixth Sense, producers have tried to find better twists for their thrillers, but have mostly failed to do so (with the exception of Shutter Island and The Others). Dream House is supposed to be a thriller but it has little thrills, it`s supposed to be a mystery but the real mystery is why the producers decided to reveal so much in the trailers. There are a lot of things that went wrong in this film, but I guess Daniel Craig and Rachel Weisz won`t be complaining since they got married shortly after working together in this film. I guess some movies are much more fun to make than to watch. I am still waiting for a decent 2011 thriller, this was definitely not it. This isn’t a scary movie either, like some people might expect from a haunted house film. It`s a plain suspense thriller that gives away a lot of the thrills in its trailer. Enough said.

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