Critics Consensus: Oz the Great and Powerful Looks Good But Lacks Magic

I think they could have had a chance to make this Oz movie something extraordinary. something people have never seen before but Disney just practically fails at everything in live action. Always making things sub par. Tron, John Carter, pirates sequels and now this. Let's hope Disney lets J.J. do his thing on Star Wars. otherwise we are heading for a train wreck,

Mar 7 - 04:33 PM

Stepping Razor

Don't hold your breath. Star Wars is now just another Disney property, stock on the shelf. J.J. Abrams won't be directing so much as following orders from Disney corporate. Abrams is a safe director. He doesn't do anything edgy, risk-taking or anywhere near subversive. He'll do whatever it is that his Disney masters want. No way Disney will strive for anything but middling mediocrity. There are toys to be sold and tons of outside marketing gimmicks to be played. Most those recent Marvel movies also fall short, despite all the hype and fanaticism surrounding them.

Mar 7 - 06:35 PM

Val Mordas

Lets face it though, could it really be worse than Attack of the Clones? Star Wars has nowhere to go but up imo.

Mar 7 - 10:40 PM

Bradly Martin

Is that such a bad thing? IF he's just following corp orders maybe they'll make him hold back on all the running and jumping in slow motion?

Mar 8 - 07:30 AM

Janson Jinnistan

You don't want them tripping on flares, do you?

Mar 8 - 09:44 AM

MicHaeL Hendriks

I have to disagree that "Disney fails at anything live-action".
The Pirates movies, at least the first three, were really great, apart from the third, which was too... whatever, "much"?...
But then there are also franchises like 'National Treasure', which is so overlooked and underrated, and I'm still waiting for a third and they haven't dropped it yet.
Also, I think mostly the live-action KIDDY-movies (by Disney) are usually terrible, and not those for a wider audience.
I also liked "Alice", but I can see why people didn't like it. I can't see why people absolutely HATE it, which is for the most part probably just out of some kind of principle attitude.

I'm a bit confused on this one, because RT-reviewers say under a 6 (out of 10) and "audience" says over an 8.
The reviewers can be as experienced as they like, but they're not 40.000+ people.
Also IMDb shows about a 7 currently. So overall I'm expecting this movie to be pretty good, at least OK. And I would probably be more tolerant as well, so I still might go see it.

Mar 8 - 08:04 AM

Bradly Martin

I liked the National Treasure movies too. Kind of bummed Riley in those movies is never invited to officially be in any Hang Over movies since he's so funny.

Mar 8 - 01:55 PM

Joe Majerus

How about Marvel, those movies seem to be pretty successful...

Mar 8 - 04:37 PM

Dave J

"The Silence" and "Beyond The Hills"!

Mar 7 - 04:58 PM

Lisa Mason

what Adam implied I am impressed someone able to earn $5500 in 4 weeks just adding movie clips. did you see this page http://cutt.us/Career

Mar 11 - 06:34 AM

Matthew Reimer

I really want to Oz. If I hate it then I hate it but I still believe that it will be a great movie.

Mar 7 - 05:14 PM

Janson Jinnistan

Need to see Gondry's "We and I" and Mungiu's "Beyond the Hills". I don't know about "Silence", it might be good, but, you know, German meditation on murder. "The Monk" looks a lot more fun 'cause it throws in sex and the devil to mingle with the guilt.

Journey without Steve Perry. Ohh-K.

"ABCs" looks dreadful overall, but there are a handful of potential goodies with Ti West (House of the Devil), Ben Wheatley (Kill List), Jason Eisener (Hobo with a Shotgun), Jon Schnepp (Metalocalypse), Ernesto Diaz Espinoza (Kiltro) and a few others from the low-budget realm.

I hope "Gut Renovation" pisses a whole bunch of hipsters off, but I don't want to really want to be there for it. Hopefully it will ask the important question: How did all those rich white chicks get on "Girls" in the first place?

Can't feel bad about Raimi's skittle vomit. He brought it on himself. (Still has better reviews than Franco's own "Interior: Leather Bar") But I am sorry to see Oplev's film go the way of "Broken City". It looked like rental anyway, but still.

Mar 7 - 05:38 PM

King Crunk

Thanks for posting the directors for ABC's; I did not have much interest in it at first, but I am very curious to see something else from the director of Kill List. That is one of the very few films I have no real opinion of in terms of it being good or bad (the only other I can think of is Refn's Valhalla Rising); it is just so bizarre, but well made and intriguing, that it kind of goes beyond the realm of being labled a good or bad movie, it just is.

Hobo With a Shotgun is one of my ultimate guilty pleasures, too, and should have been one half of Grindhouse 2 (along with Black Dynamite!).

Mar 7 - 11:44 PM

Infernal Dude

Dynomite! Dynomite! (Its my ringtone)

Mar 8 - 12:35 AM

King Crunk

That is honest to God badass!

Mar 8 - 11:41 PM

Janson Jinnistan

I only posted 5 of the 26 directors, so that leaves about 90 minutes for the rest. I haven't yet seen "Kill List" but from what I've read Wheatley is a director to watch. He also had a well-reviewed film at Sundance called "Sightseers". I'm on the fence about Eisener, because, as much as I also loved "Hobo", about 90% of that love was for Rutger Hauer. Some parts of the non-Rutger film was painfully juvenile. I love "Black Dynamite" because it actually shows a lot of affection for the films it's making fun of. Hopefully the sequel (rumored to be a western) will finally get made.

Mar 8 - 04:54 AM

King Crunk

Black Dynamite 2 could be brilliant if the same level of care was given to the writing as in the first, not to mention they would have a whole new set of material to parody with sequels.

Mar 8 - 11:43 PM

Ralph Myers

The Silence looks pretty damn good

Mar 7 - 05:38 PM

Kadeem Stewart

Is Wade Barrett in Dead Man Down?

Nothing new this week, but I'm planning to buy Tomb Raider at GameStop.

Mar 7 - 05:52 PM

Supa Hero

Yep!

Mar 10 - 10:40 AM

Adam Jones

Oz gets a mixed response, just as I speculated. It going to do much better at the box office than Jack at least, so Disney won't lose money on this like they did on John Carter. Still I question the wisdom of having massively budgeted movies come out in early March.

Mar 7 - 05:55 PM

Daniel Irwin

Yeah, but Sam Raimi's reputation hasn't been the best (as of late). I just hope he had apologized for "Spider-Man 3".

Mar 7 - 06:05 PM

King Crunk

Raimi has gone on record very recently while doing press for Oz and said he is very unhappy with the way Spiderman 3 turned out, and the reason he wanted to do a part 4 was to fix the mess the series ended on, but he could not come up with a story he like, and Sony constantly hounded him for updates so they could get production rolling, so Raimi told them he quit, do the reboot they were already planning.

Mar 7 - 11:50 PM

King Crunk

I think the success of 300 and Alice in Wonderland, both of which were early March films, were two of the big catalysts in causing studios to start putting bigger budgeted movies that are not quite summer fair at the beginning of March.

Mar 7 - 11:47 PM

Andrew Brinkerhoff

Sigh... another rough week of wide releases. Going with Mom to see "Oz" tomorrow; like "Jack", it should at least be entertaining (I'm not the most discerning movie-watcher anyways). Really hoping the 2013 movie year will truly start picking up soon.

Mar 7 - 06:54 PM

Lee Augustus

Despite the reviews, I'm going to see emperor

Mar 7 - 07:41 PM

Typhon Q

I'm still trying to figure out if why Kansas used to be black and white :\

Mar 7 - 09:00 PM

Bram Sterling

It's a pity that Oz: The Great and Powerful didn't get better reviews...

Mar 7 - 09:05 PM

King Crunk

Raimi making a visually compelling film is pretty much a given; sucks that the rest of the film appears to be uninspired. I will still see it to get my own opinion just because I love Raimi and the cast (Williams, Kunis, and Weisz are all great actresses). I am hoping he gets back to making wonderful, gross out horror flicks he is so good at (anybody else hear about him spilling the beans on Evil Dead 4!??!!?)

Dead Man Down had a great trailer full of suspense and gripping visuals, but even from that two minutes, it seemed as though the plot was a little ludicrous. Will probably still rent it, though. Anybody else notice this was a WWE Production, too!

Mar 7 - 11:36 PM

Lance Reeder

If the trailers are anything to go by "Uneven performances" was a nice way of saying Franco couldn't hold his own with the female cast.

Mar 8 - 01:45 AM

Janson Jinnistan

Franco also couldn't hold his own against Stephen Colbert. He challenged Colbert to a LOTR trivia contest, and Colbert stomped him on the first question. "You come into MY House!" (If you didn't know, Colbert is a Tolkien freak, and also won a LOTR trivia game against Peter Jackson, and can reputedly quote large chunks of the books from memory)

The interview is on the Colbert Nation website, but it's edited. I don't know what was taken out, but Colbert resorts to asking the kite-ish looking Franco questions like, "Are you OK?" and "How are you feeling?", and the audience is laughing at something that was clearly unaired.

Mar 8 - 05:00 AM

King Crunk

I do not watch Colbert on a regular basis, but I find him very amusing when I do, and had no idea he was such a big Tolkien fan.

Mar 8 - 11:40 PM

Jameson Bradford

Seeing Oz tonight regardless of some of the critical drubbing (and, let's face it, almost 60% isn't that bad for a big budget prequel to one of the most beloved movies of all time). My guess is that nothing Oz related would please some of these critics (one of them even keeps referring to the Garland '39 version as the original - being a professional movie critic, I'd expect them to know there was a full-length silent movie in '25, thus making the Garland version a remake itself).

Mar 8 - 06:05 AM

MicHaeL Hendriks

Audience says an 8...

Mar 8 - 08:04 AM