Movie review: Oz The Great And Powerful (2013)

Yesterday we went to a midnight showing of Oz The Great and Powerful. The show started at 12.15am. That is the time I am usually getting ready to bed on Saturday night. The show ended at around 2.15 am, and after that I was so sleepy. I didn’t blame it mostly on the movie, but because that was already the time I should be sleeping. But to be honest, the movie didn’t pull my breath away, and so I couldn’t escape from being tired.

Oz The Great And Powerful tells the story of a small-time magician that accidentally ventured into land of Oz and is destined to fulfill the prophecy of the kingdom that he is the King whom needs to kill the evil witch. Yup…you are right, it’s a Disney film with this sort of storyline. A man accidentally travelled into a mysterious land, witch hunting, and romance. Very typical of a Disney story. But that depends on how the movie carries it all out for us to decide whether it’s a great movie or just a very typical one.

But there is some sort of twist to the storyline that made it not much predictable as usual, and I like that. Usually, in movie like this, the main character would be first introduced to the good party first on which they would tell him what to do and so on. However, in this film, Oz met the baddies first without he knowing it, and then he misunderstood the other side as the evil one. His companions on the adventure are also some sort of unusual; a monkey with wings and a little porcelain girl. Slowly, he learnt to be a good man and fulfill the prophecy by creating the greatest show he ever had by using tricks and illusions on which he is expert in. Of course, as usual, he felt in love with the good witch that assisted him most of the time.

 

James Franco did a brilliant performance as Oz. Well, an acting by a former Academy best actor nominee is no doubt solid. Mila Kunis is quite pretty but I find she is quite annoying in this movie, and the worst thing is she is one of the evil witches unbelievably. The visual effect is good too, but not as extraordinary as seen in Life of Pi. It’s looking quite unrealistic and not much appealing either. Ooppss…I started to compare every film’s visual effects with that of Life of Pi from now on already. I expected more of the characters dealing with mythical creatures found in the land of Oz, but there isn’t much.

The first half of the film is quite boring. Luckily, Oz is brought over to the land of Oz quick before wasting any more time. However, as the movie progresses to the last half, things get very much interesting and exciting. Since there is no killing allowed in the good land of Oz, the two evil witches are sent away (which indicates they might come back possibly in sequel too). This is something not typical. The villain are not killed yet, but the movie still gets a very happy ending. I like the part when Oz used what he is expert in to scare off the two evil witches, knowing that his weak army would never be able to defeat them. It’s hilarious at some points too, and I laughed at several very comedic scenes. The monkey is a very cute character that entertained me the most. It’s worth watching and I gave it a positive review. Out of 10 points, I rate ‘Oz The Great And Powerful’ a total of 7.0.

(Images in this post are from various sources throughout the world wide web)