August DVD Releases
Posted on July 31, 2013 by bob in DVD
Oz the Great and Powerful (PG)
This overlong prequel to the classic Wizard of Oz offers much to admire, but more to regret. Its new screenplay gives us the backstory on how the Wizard wound up there before Dorothy blew into town for her famous adventure. With the resources of the Disney empire and Sam Raimi at the helm, one might expect another fantasy for the ages. One would be severely disappointed.
James Franco stars as Oz, a cheesy magician in a seedy little traveling carnival in 1905 Kansas. He has no scruples about conning the rubes, or trying to seduce the local lovelies. While fleeing from an irate husband in a hot air balloon, a tornado swoops him up to the not-so-merry old land of Oz, where he’s believed to be the wizard of prophesy to free the kingdom from the clutches of an evil witch. As in the original, the Kansas setup is filmed in black & white, creating a stunning contrast when he reaches the colorful splendor of the main action.
The place is up for grabs among three witchy sisters (Rachel Weisz, Mila Kunis, Michelle Williams) who are variably good or wicked. One kilt their pa, the kindly king who is mourned by the nice folk of the land. This “wizard” is actually more cowardly than Bert Lahr’s lion; and whatever heart he may have beyond Jack Haley’s Tin Man is dwarfed by his avarice.
The visuals are truly spectacular – especially in the climactic confrontation sequence. But there’s not enough meat in the script for well over two hours of running time. Besides that, Franco mugs his way through the worst performance of his career, other than last year’s dreadful job of co-hosting The Oscars.
Parents should be aware that this is a darker, scarier adventure than Judy Garland’s journey, with less offsetting cuteness and music. It could easily have been rated PG-13. Keep that in mind, along with relative attention-spans, when deciding which kids to invite to watch this move.
Where were Tim Burton, Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham-Carter when they were needed?
The Place Beyond the Pines (R)
This ambitious, lengthy drama tries for essentially a trilogy of overlapping tales, as the action shifts from one principal and time to another. Ryan Gosling opens as a motorcycle stunt rider on the carnival circuit. On one stop he sees a local lass he boinked (Eva Mendes) on last year’s visit, and learns a son resulted. He tries to do the right thing, even though she has another man in her life. He quits the carny and scrambles for whatever work he can find. Unfortunately, crime becomes his only apparent way to make enough to convince Mendes he deserves to be part of their lives.That runs him afoul of the police – especially one ambitious young officer (Bradley Cooper).
The action shifts to Cooper’s problems within his own department, embodied by Ray Liotta’s role, which adds yet another dirty cop to his cinematic resume of bad guys. Cooper has a young son, too. That sets up Act Three, focusing on the boys 15 years later.
The first two segments are suspenseful and intriguing, with fine writing and acting behind the tale’s moral ambiguities. That’s what makes the next-generation story such a letdown. It’s founded on unlikely coincidence, and meanders from there. After such a strong pair of setup episodes, the script should have been more plausible, or at least more coherent. Meatloaf famously sang years ago that two out of three ain’t bad. But it’s not always good enough, either.
Jack the Giant Slayer (PG-13)
Here’s yet another fairy tale stretched into a somewhat more adult action-adventure flick following what Hollywood has done lately to Little Red Riding Hood, Snow White, Hansel & Gretel, and perhaps a couple of others. These stem from a couple of irresistible temptations – the ease of creating fanciful worlds and creatures with today’s computer graphics, and the perceived box-office advantage of offering something based on the familiar. The latter also explains the proliferation of sequels in horror, action, sci-fi, animation and comedies. The former unfortunately has led to spending too much of the budget on the sizzle, at the expense of the steak…meaning the script.
So we get a rather tedious tale of intrepid Jack (Nicholas Hoult, who looks like Richard Thomas’ John Boy in the early years of The Waltons) and a spunky princess (Eleanor Tomlinson, who looks like every post-feminist, not-just-pretty-but-smart-and-brave heiress to a mythical throne) climbing that beanstalk to encounter a whole ragtag army of nasty giants who ravaged the earthlings below many generations ago, who’ve been seething about their prison-in-the-sky existence ever since. Don’t even try to make sense of the premise. The producers didn’t.
Admittedly, the f/x make for some exciting moments, including a spectacular climactic battle. If these revisionist sagas continue to be profitable, how long will it be before Mother Hubbard’s poor doggie goes all Cujo for want of a bone, or Little Miss Muffet replaces John Goodman’s hilarious exterminator in a retooled remake of Arachnophobia?
Mark Glass
Mark Glass is an officer & director of the St. Louis Film Critics Association.
