Oz the Great and Powerful

Oz the Great and Powerful - Dir. Sam Raimi (2013)

Walt Disney had always wanted to make an animated film based on Frank L. Baum's The Wizard of Oz. However, MGM beat him to the punch, acquiring the rights and producing their classic musical starring Judy Garland. The closest Disney ever came was a television special featuring the Mouseketeers as various characters and the disturbing cult classic Return to Oz with a young Fairuza Balk as Dorothy. Oz the Great and Powerful is an interesting proposition since it’s a prequel to another studio's movie. Despite the books now falling into public domain, Disney is unable to use elements specifically created for the cinematic version of Wizard of Oz, which is now owned by Warner Brothers. Thus, there are no ruby slippers and even the design of the Yellow Brick Road and the shade of green on the Wicked Witch's skin had to be altered.

Spoilers Ahead.

Oscar Diggs (James Franco) is a sideshow magician in a traveling circus that has found its way to the dustbowl of Kansas. He is not only an illusionist, but an inventor with aspirations to become Harry Houdini and Thomas Edison rolled into one. A jealous strongman chases Diggs into a hot air balloon that is quickly sucked into a tornado that transports him to the Land of Oz. Taking a cue from the 1939 version, Oz opens in black and white with the 1.33:1 aspect ratio before expanding to widescreen and fading into color. There, he is greeted by Theodora (Mila Kunis), a good witch who believes Diggs is the prophesized wizard that will free them from the tyranny of the Wicked Witch. Theodora's sister, Evanora (Rachel Weisz), promises Diggs he will become the new King of Oz and be rewarded the treasure of Emerald City should he defeat the Witch.

Diggs is joined on his journey by a talking monkey with wings named Finley (Zach Braff) and a living China Girl (Joey King), the only survivor of a porcelain village shattered by the Witch's army of flying baboons. But, the witch they are sent after is actually Glinda the Good (Michelle Williams) whose father, the former King of Oz, was poisoned by the true Wicked Witch, Evanora. When the truth comes out, Evanora manipulates her sister into biting an enchanted apple that turns her into the hook nosed Wicked Witch of the West.

It's clear that Disney is hoping to replicate the mammoth success of Alice in Wonderland. Both projects share a producer in Joe Roth and a production designer in Robert Stromberg, who also worked on Avatar. Those previous credits clearly shine through in the digital construction of Oz, which looks like a Technicolor melding of Wonderland and Pandora. There are enormous blossoms, river fairies with piranha-like teeth, and a glimmering art deco Emerald City. However, what's lacking is a sense of awe. The CGI environment never feels real and many scenes simply come off as actors walking in front of a green screen. The soundstages and matte paintings of the original film felt more real than the expensive special effects of Oz. Director Sam Raimi manages to inject some life into the action with his trademark flourishes of whip pans, accelerated zooms, canted angles, and cameos by brother Ted Raimi and Bruce Campbell. One set piece involves a Looney Tunes-esque sequence on a cliff that is played out in silhouette. When the heroes arrive at the Dark Forest, they are assailed by snapping vines in a creepy callback to Evil Dead. Thankfully, no one gets raped by tree branches. Raimi also tosses in several cool shots of the witches hurling magical energy at each other, especially Evanora who shoots lightning bolts like a Dark Lord of the Sith. The prologue makes nice use of 3D with objects flying out of frame, but the effects become less pronounced as the movie progresses.

James Franco never rises to the occasion of convincingly portraying the young wizard as a vintage flim-flam man. You imagine the character as someone like Robert Preston in The Music Man or George Clooney in O Brother, Where Art Thou, a scoundrel with the gift of gab. And it's easy to imagine why Raimi would be drawn to Diggs because Raimi's early days as a filmmaker required the same sense of invention, ingenuity, and salesmanship. You can also draw parallels between Oz and Army of Darkness, both of whom feature a protagonist transported to another land who must overcome their own selfish motivations to defeat an evil force with their unique knowledge.

Franco simply isn't up to the task, not surprising since he wasn't the first choice. The studio wanted Robert Downey Jr. and when he turned it down, they pursued Johnny Depp who was already committed to The Lone Ranger. While Franco could hardly be considered a consolation prize, Depp's previous turns as Ed Wood and Willy Wonka might have made him the perfect pick. Franco frequently takes a backseat to Finley and the feisty China Girl, who fill the roles of adorable sidekicks. Mila Kunis is equally out of depth as the Wicked Witch, a role that doesn't take advantage of her natural comedic skills. Rachel Weisz and Michelle Williams pick up the slack and are absolutely stellar as Theodora's fellow spell-casters.

Oz the Great and Powerful was lavished with a budget of $200 million, but all that money couldn't buy this film any of the charm or timelessness of its predecessor.

Rating: ** (*****)

Cowboys & Aliens

Cowboys & Aliens - Dir. Jon Favreau (2011)

Cowboys & Aliens has one of those high-concept titles that tells you exactly what you're going to get. Just like Snakes on a Plane had snakes on a plane, Cowboys & Aliens has cowboys and aliens. It should have been a cool mish-mash of Western and sci-fi genres, but, again, like Snakes on a Plane worked better as a joke on paper. Based loosely on a graphic novel published by Platinum Studios, Cowboys & Aliens had all the makings of a successful summer blockbuster. It had two renowned leading men together for the first time in Daniel Craig and Harrison (James Bond and Indiana Jones!). It had a talented director with a proven track record in Jon Favreau (Iron Man). Steven Spielberg, Ron Howard, and Brian Grazer were among the producers. Credited screenwriters included Roberto Orci & Alex Kurtzman (Transformers), Damon Lindelof (Lost), Mark Fergus & Hawk Ostby (also of Iron Man), and Steve Oedekerk (Kung Pow: Enter the Fist), who was attached to write and direct way back in 1997. Hmm…okay that last one was odd, but you can hardly hang the film's failures on a singular man.

Cowboys & Aliens opens with an unidentified man (Craig) awakening in the desert with no memory of who he is or where he came from. There's also a bizarre bracelet attached to his wrist. After killing a trio of assailants, he makes his way to the small town of Absolution where we learn he is a wanted outlaw named Jake Lonergan. The whole town lives in fear of local cattle baron, Col. Woodrow Dolarhyde (Ford), whose sniveling son, Percy (Paul Dano), has also arrived to drunkenly shoot up the place and bully the barkeep Doc (Sam Rockwell). When the Colonel learns Percy and Lonergan have been arrested, he rides into Absolution with the intent of taking them both. Just as the six-shooters are about to be drawn, mysterious lights flash in the sky. The aliens have arrived on crab-like vessels destroying everything below and snatching up innocent people left and right. Among those taken are Percy, Sheriff Taggart (Keith Carradine), and Doc's wife Maria (Ana de la Reguera). Lonergan discovers his bracelet is actually an advanced weapon capable of detecting the aliens and destroying their ships.

Lonergan and Dolarhyde reluctantly form a posse to rescue their people and stave off the alien invasion. Among their group include Doc, Dolarhyde's Native American servant Nat Colorado (Adam Beach, the Sheriff's grandson Emmett (Noah Ringer), the gruff reverend Meacham (Clancy Brown), and a mysterious woman named Ella (Olivia Wilde). Eventually they are all forced to team up with a tribe of Apaches and a band of ruthless outlaws in a final showdown with the extraterrestrials.

The film starts with a strong first act mimicking all the standard tropes of the Western with the taciturn hero and Mexican standoffs. Favreau does his best to ground the story in some semblance of reality even after the outlandish introduction of space invaders. Then, things start going off the rails. The momentum built up at the beginning drops into a second act lull as the plot takes its time to develop its thinly drawn characters. The narrative is clumsily dotted with flashback sequences of Lonergan's fuzzy past. Ford is initially cast against type as a gruff and slightly racist antagonist, but he's Harrison Ford and can't stay that way the whole movie. He's significantly softened with two cheesy subplots of Dolarhyde acting as a surrogate father to Nat and Emmett. The movie also gets taken down a notch with the early loss of Paul Dano, who served as an excellent whipping boy to Craig's Lonergan. Despite her insane gorgeousness, Olivia Wilde appears only as a functionary character to deliver helpful exposition and act as a deus ex machine to defeat the aliens. Also wasted are great character actors like Keith Carradine, Walt Goggins, and Clancy Brown.

Favreau is a solid director with a knack for handling large ensembles, but he's not the flashiest when it comes to action. His finales (both Iron Man movies, for example) tend to build up strong and then fizzle out towards the end. Cowboys & Aliens suffers from an anti-climatic finish as the final battle between the humans and aliens becomes monotonous and easily forgettable.

While classic Westerns like The Searchers served as inspiration, Cowboys & Aliens (with its wooden dialogue and silly plot contrivances) recalls the B-movie productions of Roger Corman. There is an underlying irony beneath the pedestrian narrative about our nation's history of genocide and Manifest Destiny, but don't think for an instance this movie is an allegory for American imperialism. Cowboys & Aliens isn't a game changing genre bender. It is summer entertainment. Mindless escapism in its purest form.

Rating: ** (*****)