Happiness! I can feel it once again now. Oh, how you have eluded me so far this year, to emerge momentarily and then fade away... but such was not the case tonight. A joyful smile was planted on my face from quite early on and it remained there more or less throughout the next two hours, to be substituted at times by muffled gasps or roaring laughter. Oz the Great and Powerful is the kind of film that the year needed to get things roaring forward, picturesque, adventurous, magical and fun-laden. For the ones completely unaware of the origins of the tale, the movie acts as a prequel of sorts to the story told in the classic novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz written by L. Frank Baum (and hence James Franco in the movie is working with the circus called 'Baum Brothers Circus'!), published in 1900, which led to the highly popular movie of 1939 titled The Wizard of Oz. While Baum's story was about the adventures of a young girl from Kansas, Dorothy, who seeks the help of the mysterious Wizard of Oz in her pursuit to reach back home, Oz the Great and Powerful explores the origin of the Wizard himself, who he really was, how did he end up in the land of Oz, what adventures led to the people of Oz believing in him, and so forth. The idea is a delightful one to explore for it could be equivalent to someone a hundred years from now filming a movie on the adventures of Harry Potter's parents! The key is how well do you execute it.
Thankfully, Sam Raimi does not do what Bryan Singer did with Jack the Giant Slayer, that is simply take up a popular story and paste it against a large landscape. Sam Raimi works with a more elaborate and intriguing storyline which tries to bring out the changes that James Franco's character, the to-be Wizard of Oz who is also nicknamed Oz, goes through, from being a conman looking for greatness to becoming a good man who starts caring for others too. The plot pays a number of homages to the original novel and the subsequent movie of 1939. So you have the opening Kansas scene in black-and-white mode which shifts to colour once James Franco lands in Oz and you have the scene with the lion getting scared easily to which the Wizard shouts after him to get courage (the Cowardly Lion was one of the creatures accompanying Dorothy to meet the Wizard of Oz in the original book). These teeny-tiny additions are what make such tales more appealing. And as I have not seen the 1939 film, I am sure I have missed out on quite a few more references.
There is no dearth of characters in this movie, reminding you at times of the elaborate manner in which Disney came out a few years back with another one of the classic story reincarnations, Alice in Wonderland. Interestingly, L. Frank Baum himself is said to have been inspired to a degree by Lewis Carroll's writings, and to see such large budget movies being released on stories related to works of these two great writers, reinvigorates faith in one thing... classics fade not with time! James Franco as the central character has a lot riding on his shoulders and his charm is what makes the magic of the wizard work. Be it his wide grins when in a tight spot, or his impassioned speech when he talks of achieving greatness, or the emergence of his empathetic side when he is the last hope for many, James Franco manages to sell the 'conman with a heart' part quite well. He had big boots to fill too for his role was initially offered to Robert Downey Jr. and then to Johnny Depp, and you could so easily see one of them as the Wizard, for what these two have mainly in common is truckloads of charm.
And as for every wizard one can expect a witch, Oz the Great and Powerful delights us with three. Rachel Weisz as Evanora for me steals the show amongst the witches with her effortless performance. She's a pro after all! Mila Kunis as Theodora is the one who falls for the Wizard's charms and it is only in the second half of the movie she really comes alive. Michelle Williams steps into the movie after half of it is over, but she fits the role of Glinda perfectly. Talking too much of the witches would ruin the tale though for with them lies much of the mystery. Two of the unexpected highlights of the movie are Finley the flying monkey voiced by Zach Braff (he's no Superman!) and the China Girl voiced by Joey King. They have some of the funniest lines and also the tenderest moments of the movie. And while the magic is there to be delivered, it is the production design of Oscar-winner Robert Stromberg, who has worked before on Avatar and Alice in Wonderland, that adds to the vow factor, making the movie a visual treat, especially if you are lucky enough to watch it in the Imax format. The exquisite creatures created for the land of Oz, the beautiful recreation of the Emerald City and the wide-angle shots taken, simply add to the flavour.
Oz the Great and Powerful though falls short in transcending from an enjoyable lovely film to a great classic film, because of the manner in which the story progresses. It gets a bit bumpy at times, moving too quickly and then a bit slowly. The progression in James Franco's character is the key ticking point here, and the pace of this metamorphosis in him should have been the pace of the movie, which at times isn't. But my complaints are limited for after all I started writing with the words 'happiness' and to that I shall stick. Made on a production budget of $200 million, Oz the Great and Powerful earnings would no doubt be compared to the box-office smashing Alice in Wonderland. An $80 million opening weekend in USA is the latest estimate which would be shy of the $116 million that Alice in Wonderland had garnered in its first weekend. But strong worldwide revenues is what movies bank on nowadays, and if Oz the Great and Powerful can get anywhere close to the $690 million made by Alice in Wonderland outside USA, then that would very well turn out to be the biggest show of the Wizard of Oz!
No comments:
Post a Comment