'Oz: The Great and Powerful' Looks Like a Beautiful Train Wreck
There's a new trailer for Oz: The Great and Powerful and it looks like the Sam Raimi directing, James Franco starring project will be a loud, technicolor trip back to Oz you might want to avoid.
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Okay, where to begin. The trailer starts with a shot of an old-timey circus ground. You know it's a an old-timey because everything is in black and white and in 4:3 format instead of your standard 16:9 widescreen. Television screens were so weird in old-timey days. We see Franco's character working as a magician in the old-timey circus, and apparently he's okay because he makes a person disappear. We hear Franco say, "I don't want to be a good man. I want to be a great one," which is important because the movie is called The Great and Powerful. The next thing we see is Franco foolishly taking off in a hot air balloon during a tornado. He wants to be a great man, but he still has trouble recognizing appropriate weather for flying. Hm, good luck with that, Franco. Guess what? He gets sucked into the tornado and gets transported to Oz, just like Dorothy.
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And then, color! It's everywhere. Everything looks unique like Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland. It's intentional, the two movies share a producer. The image is in widescreen now. "Am I dreaming?" Franco asks. "You're in Oz," says Mila Kunis, who apparently plays the Witch of Floppy Hats. We get a wide shot of Oz, Franco consoling a crying porcelain doll, a flash of Michelle Williams playing Glinda, the Good Witch of the South, and then a quick cut of action shots. "Are you the great man we've been waiting for?" asks the voiceover. Again, calling back to the title as if we don't know how great Franco is. And then, it's scary flying demon monkeys. A lot of scary flying demon monkeys.
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Ha, so, that's everything. What do you think? We're skeptical! Alice was a beautiful mess by all accounts, and they're going for the same look here. The cast here is phenomenal, though. Franco, Kunis, Willams, and Rachel Weisz round out the film's big four. Sam Raimi does his best when he's given the room for a little terrifying whimsy, and there's no better place to scare people out of their ruby slippers than Oz. We guess we're cautiously optimistic. There's a lot of good to work with here, and we'd like it if Raimi could knock another one out of the park. Spider-Man 3 ruined everything, and no one saw Drag Me To Hell. Four years later, he's got a shot with James Franco as his wizard.
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