THE INTERVIEW, In Hilarious Fashion, Leaves No Target Un-Besmirched

THE INTERVIEW Review:

- Never did I anticipate that THE INTERVIEW would become the international incident that it has. I won't spend time recapping the sheer insanity that has occurred over the last few weeks, except to say that, improbably, an over-the-top Seth Rogen/James Franco comedy has become the talk of the world, and has therefore attracted the attention - and drawn the scrutiny - of an unlikely assemblage of film critics, journalists, politicians, and seemingly everyone else in the known universe. People who never would have seen this movie have seen it. People with delicate constitutions. People who don't find an hour and a half of brilliantly-crafted dick jokes all that funny or interesting. People whose definition of good comedy starts and ends at pre-00's TV sitcoms. I'm not here to insult anyone, but as someone who always tries to talk about movies in the context of what they are and what they're trying to be, I have to give a finger of shame to all those talking out of turn about THE INTERVIEW. If you don't like or don't understand this style of humor, then don't watch it, and for the love of all that is holy, don't provide your highly-subjective opinion like its the gospel. The fact is,  the state of comedy in America is in a really weird place, and has been for a long time. We live in an age of niche comedy, where mom and dad can happily laugh along to TV Land re-runs while their teenaged kids crack up to obscure Adult Swim animation. And each presumes that the other's preferred brand of comedy is garbage. In an age where it's easy to go down the rabbit hole and become a hardcore fan of something, we're seeing an increasing divide between the comedy nerds and the people who know nerds from their favorite show, The Big Bang Theory. What comedy nerds know is that a lot of great comedy is, on the surface, completely dumb. But they also know that it takes a real brilliance to make great dumb comedy, and that often even the raunchiest, silliest comedy contains its own unique form of genius.

So listen up, people. If you're going to critique comedy, then understand what makes good comedy. Understand that Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg are very smart people who are very good at what they do. Understand that there is a cleverness to their films, a sense of comedic timing, and an underlying wit that is leagues ahead of more pandering-to-the-lowest-common-denominator comedies that THE INTERVIEW will inevitably get lumped in with by people who don't know any better. I'm not trying to be a jerk or a snob here, I'm just urging people to give their thoughts more educated context then "derp, The Interview sucked, I didn't laugh once - those guys are idiots!" No. Appreciate the art-form or keep your views to yourself. Or, at the least, have the good sense to acknowledge that the film just isn't your cup of tea, so you may not be the best-qualified to speak on it. I get it - there's an undeniable absurdity in the idea that *this*, of all movies, was the one that became a rallying cry for freedom of speech, that led to Presidential comments and political debates. Because of that, there's inevitably going to be a backlash, both overt and more passive-aggressive. I can't tell you how many times I've read: "I had no interest in this stupid movie, but I'll see it because patriotism." Again: no. See it or don't see it - that's your call. But don't be blind to the point here, the point which your passive-aggressive qualifiers are in fact undermining: that, by-god, we live in a country where we are free to be funny in whatever manner we choose. We live in a country in which comedy *can* be celebrated as an art form - a place where the very *idea* of comedy - cutting through the barriers of convention and getting at some greater Truth (even if said truth is absurd) - is valid.

So how is THE INTERVIEW? I wouldn't put it quite at the sublime laugh-riot levels of last year's This Is The End, or even say that it's as good as the bro's vs. schmoes brilliance of this summer's Neighbors. But it is really, really funny. In many ways, it's the silliest movie that Seth Rogen has yet made, with a lot of very over-the-top cartoonish gags, with barely a foot - or even a toe - in reality. And that might not be everyone's bag, but I think it fits. A place as strange and fundamentally absurd as Kim Jong Un's North Korea deserves to be treated absurdly. And a guy who claims to talk to dolphins and to not defecate simply has to be taken to task and skewered. When the reality is so fundamentally silly, so too is the satire.

As always though, Rogen and Goldberg's script isn't *really* even about North Korea, but instead about two man-children who are forced to (at least slightly) grow up. Rogen plays Aaron, a TV producer who left a career in more serious journalism to work on a fluffy, Access Hollywood-style entertainment show. James Franco plays Dave, the over-eager host of the show who is also Aaron's best friend and biggest bad-influence. When Aaron finds out that Kim Jong Un is in fact a fan of his show, he sees it as a chance to branch out to covering more serious subject matter. He arranges an interview with Un, but before he and Dave can head to North Korea, they are confronted by the FBI. Given the access to the notorious dictated that Dave is set to be granted, the feds want Dave to be the catalyst for a top-secret assassination plot.

Rogen and Franco are a well-matched comedic duo, with Rogen's stoner every-man a good foil for Franco's slightly-crazed eccentric. Franco goes full-on broad with his comedy here, and goes full-throttle with his "I AM ACTING FUNNY IN A COMEDY MOVIE" affectation. It gets a little grating at times, and I do wonder if the movie would have worked a bit better had Franco toned it down just a tad. But Rogen's more grounded character - and the overall sharpness of the script - helps to offset the fact that Franco is slightly overdoing it. The fact is, the situations Franco finds himself in are completely insane, and so his slightly insane character is not completely out of place. As it turns out, Franco's Dave befriends the fawning Kim Jong Un, who acts like an insecure dork who's just become the best friend of the coolest kid in school. Un tries to impress Dave with his cars, tanks, food, and women, and the easily-manipulated Dave soon finds himself warming up to the childlike Un. Randall Park plays Kim Jong Un to perfection - he comes off as an overgrown kid who balances moments of charm with moments of unbridled psychopathic scariness. The running joke is that Un is pretty much stuck in a phase of teenage insecurity - worried that liking Margaritas and Katy Perry might make him gay (responds Franco: "If liking margaritas and Katy Perry makes you gay, then who would ever want to be straight?"), and spinning all manner of absurd lies about his supposed god-like status. But Park is great here - extremely funny, but also scary and effective as a villain when need be.

There are some great supporting players who also knock it out of the park here. Lizzy Caplan goes above and beyond as Agent Lacey, Aaron and Dave's ultra-competent and perpetually frustrated handler. Diana Bang is also a standout as Sook, a top-ranking lieutenant of Kim Jong Un who harbors feelings of resentment for her supreme leader. Bang really kicks some ass here, and also displays a real knack for comedy in some of her scenes with Rogen. Also, have to give a shout-out to Veep's Timothy Simons, who has a really small role but delivers maybe the funniest line of the film during an extended Lord of the Rings riff.

Evan Goldberg really shows off his directorial chops here. The film foregoes the bright, hyper-saturated look of most modern comedies, instead looking more like the sort of action/thriller that the movie seeks to lampoon. And when the action heats up, it's super well-directed, with some hilarious yet pretty-damn-badass fight scenes and even a tank chase. Yep.

If you don't like scatalogical humor, then you should probably avoid this one altogether. But man, for those of us who can appreciate well-honed raunch, THE INTERVIEW delivers it in spades. But again, you've got to respect the extent to which Rogen and Goldberg know exactly what they're doing with the movie's humor - gleefully undermining every (and I mean every) moment with the potential for serious dramatic weight with something silly and wonderfully absurd. There are occasionally stretches where the movie flatlines just a bit, but overall, it produces pretty great gags on a consistent basis.

It's all pretty silly and funny, but I do think there's a method to at least some of the madness. There are no sacred cows here - the joke is on Rogen and Franco's characters as much as it is on anyone else. But beneath the absurdity there's also a pretty biting takedown of Kim Jong Un's North Korea - not in a way that's incredibly substantive or serious, but more so in that the movie 100% calls out Un on everything about him that, in real-life, is just as silly and absurd as it's portrayed in the film. The movie holds up a funhouse mirror to Un, imagining a world in his image - where everyone acts with all the reason and enlightenment of a moody fifteen-year-old. This is the absurdity that a guy like Un deserves thrown back at him. In the 40's, Hitler was punched out by patriotic re-imaginings of his concept of the "ubermensch" - KO'd by the likes of Captain America and Superman. In the 80's, we imagined rugged lone wolves like Rambo to singlehandedly take down the Communist machine. Now, for the guy who talks to dolphins and has no butthole, it's hard to argue that cult-comedy stoner maestros Rogen and Franco are the unlikely, absurdist heroes that Kim Jong Un deserves.

Is THE INTERVIEW a comedy classic worthy of the special place in history it shall now receive? Debatable. But is it the kind of ballsy movie that's worth rallying around, as an example of freedom of speech at its most free? Yes it is. This isn't a dumb movie - its characters are dumb, but the people behind the scenes know that, and they know what they're doing here. They've made a very funny film, but it also happens to be a film that stands for something: the All-American idea that no one, be they your best friend or the dictator of a foreign power, is above getting some egg on their face. Especially if said egg is well and rightly deserved. It's fitting then that the film fades out to the over-the-top power chords of the Scorpions' "Winds of Change." Comedy is just another form of rock n' roll, baby. A little dirty, a little misunderstood ... but man, it can help to tear down those walls more than you might think.

My Grade: A-

HOMEFRONT Is a Strange Brew

HOMEFRONT Review:

- HOMEFRONT isn't amazing, but it is pretty damn entertaining, in a vintage B-movie sort of way. The script was written years ago by none other than Sylvester Stallone, and originally he was set to star in the film. And in many ways, this feels like a vintage 1980's-era action flick, with Stallone's particular sensibilities very much retained in this updated take. But instead of Stallone, Homefront stars his Expendables brother-in-arms, Jason Statham. Meanwhile, James Franco, in what has to be one of the oddest hero/villain pairings in quite some time, plays a sleazy small-time drug dealer who runs afoul of Statham's ex-undercover DEA agent. There's not much nuance to this story, but there's a pleasingly simple, down n' dirty southern-gothic-noir vibe to the whole thing (the Louisiana setting doesn't hurt). If you're down for a 70's/80's-style B-movie that makes up for a flimsy script with a serious vibe of badassery, you could do worse.

In HOMEFRONT, Statham plays Phil Broker, a guy who once lived on the edge doing undercover work for the DEA, but who now lives a quiet and unassuming life with his young daughter, Maddy, under a new name and identity. As the movie shows in flashback, Broker spent years posing as a member of the Outcasts biker gang (yep), only to get serious heat on himself when he finally pulled the trigger and helped the DEA take down the gang, which ran a high-level drug trade. Not only was Broker exposed as a traitor to the Outcasts, but he became their sworn enemy when the gang-leader's son was killed in the crossfire during the DEA raid. Around that same time, Broker's wife died, leaving him alone with Maddy. The two assume new ID's and move to his wife's hometown in Louisiana, where Broker takes a construction job and tries to live a quiet, small-town life. However, trouble finds him when he runs afoul of local drug dealer Gator (James Franco). Gator stumbles upon Broker's true identity, and sells him out to the Outcasts. Soon enough, the trouble that Broker had hoped wouldn't find him again descends on him with a vengeance.

The movie follows a predictable arc of "just when I thought I was out ...", but it doesn't overplay that hand and become self-parody. What impressed me about HOMEFRONT was that the film maintained a dark, atmospheric, pulpy tone throughout. Statham is, mostly, in "real actor" mode here, which helps. That said, the movie does have a select few interludes where it becomes pure Statham-style action. These action scenes are fun, but there's a little bit of disconnect between their high-octane style and the rest of the film's lower-key aesthetic. That aesthetic seems more in line with director Gary Fleder's usual style, and Fleder seems to embrace the film's grittier aspects. Fleder helps keep the movie relatively grounded, and seems to reign in the action so that it's never too over-the-top (with perhaps one or two lapses).

As for Franco, he's good as Gator, delving into the same white-trash vicinity as his celebrated character Alien from this year's Spring Breakers. Franco doesn't take Gator to quite the same iconic heights as Alien, but he still adds some spark to the film and does well as a small-timer who gets in over his head. The real scene-stealer of the movie though is, believe it or not, Kate Bosworth. Playing Gator's trailer-trash, drug-addicted sister, Bosworth turns in a gloriously unhinged performance that I didn't know she had in her. Meanwhile, a few welcome faces turn up in supporting roles: Clancy Brown as a crooked sheriff, Winona Ryder as Gator's street-smart girlfriend, and Frank Grillo as the intimidating heavy of the Outcast gang. I'll also mention that child actor Izabela Vidovic is quite good as Statham's daughter. She really sells her big scenes, and helps us invest in Broker and his quest to shield his daughter from harm.

Where does HOMEFRONT falter? I think it loses its way in a couple of respects. One is simply that the plotting is only so-so. I like the premise and initial plot set-up, and I like the notion of this small-time drug-dealer exposing Statham's ID and unleashing an angry gang onto this small backwoods town. But the way the movie plays out, it never feels like it's fully taking advantage of its premise's potential for drama. I felt like Broker's transition from unassuming small-town dad to pissed-off ass-kicker on a mission just sort of happens, and it's never quite properly built up to in a satisfying manner. Especially as compared to action movies like Taken, that do a great job of creating that build-up to their heroes going full-badass. I suppose the larger problem here is a movie that is a bit at odds with itself. Is it a Taken-style action flick? A gritty crime noir? Fleder obviously favors the latter, but there are lots of teases of the former. And the movie rarely meshes both in a way that works (unlike, say, this year's Mud, which mixed genres in unexpected and thrilling ways). In any case, an example of this is that on one level, the movie seems to be building towards an epic shoot 'em up climax, but said all-hell-breaks-loose finale never quite comes. From a tonal perspective, I see where that makes sense. From a plot perspective, you feel a bit shortchanged. So again, the two seem at odds.

The other way in which the movie goes a bit off the rails is, hate to say it, the script. Again, it may be a matter of Stallone's unsubtle style clashing just a bit with a director who likes to go the more subtle route. I mean, how subtle can your movie be when it opens on a gang of 80's hair-metal rejects called "The Outcasts" as the main antagonists? To that end, you sort of wonder if this movie would be better served were it trying to be less No Country For Old Men and more Cobra. In a way, it's fun to see the sorta-weird mash-up of Stallone and Fleder and Statham come together. On the other hand, the end result is a movie that feels a bit schizophrenic.

Still, there is a definite pleasure in HOMEFRONT's B-movie oddness. It's fun to see all the elements of 80's-style cheese and Statham-style hyper-action pop up amidst Fleder's attempt to make something a little more sober and soulful. And there's a madcap sense of fun in seeing Jason Statham, James Franco, Frank Grillo, Kate Bosworth, Winona Ryder, and Clancy Brown mix it up - an eclectic cast if ever there was one. Perhaps not a must-see, but if you're a certain brand of film-fan, you'll definitely want to give this a look.

My Grade: B

SPRING BREAKERS Is Crazy Vision of Hell On Earth

SPRING BREAKERS Review:

- Far from being a simple bit of pop exploitation, SPRING BREAKERS is a weird-as-hell, tripped-out, pitch-black social satire that I found both fascinating and aggravating. Writer/director Harmony Korine is not the kind of guy who would ever make a normal teen beach movie. And a normal teen beach movie this is not. This is a film that's subversive, darkly funny, and very much critiquing the "spring break!" lifestyle, that, upon first glance, it seems to be celebrating. But in fact, the film seems to look out upon the bleak wasteland of youth-trash culture and cast an apocalyptic, judgmental eye upon it. Korine goes full-on scorched earth here, delivering an at-times funny, at times-scathing satire that is well worth checking out, even if only to see something completely weird and different.

Spring Breakers tell the story of four college girls who are desperate to escape their dorms and classrooms and live the crazy, party-all-night lives that to them are the nadir of existence. Their mecca is Spring Break, and they are determined to get their at all costs. Only good-girl Faith (Selena Gomez) has reservations about the whole thing, though she goes along with her friends with a disturbing sense of naivete. I say this because the girls' plans to party are tinged with a sinister streak. Their appetite for danger and destruction comes with a nihilistic, masochistic attitude - as evidenced by the other three girls, Candy, Britt, and Cotty - funding their plans through armed robbery. The three wilder girls clearly get off on holding innocent people at gunpoint, and that desire to keep pushing boundaries colors everything that comes next.

Enter James Franco's drug-dealing, cornrowed rapper Alien. Alien is sort of the lord of Spring Break, and he quickly takes the four girls under his wing. Under Alien's tutelage, the girls' evolving ideas of Spring Break glory continue to evolve. Sex and violence intermingle, and the loose morals of Spring Break transform into a brazen immorality that is less about partying and fun, and more about a numb, brain-dead youth culture who rack up real-life thrills with the emotional detachment of a junkie looking for the next fix.

Like just about all elements of the film, Franco walks the exact line between trashy, jokey badness and oddball brilliance. Somehow, it works. And at one point soon after his character's introduction, James Franco gives - no joke - one of the most memorable monologues in movie history. Taking the girls into his tricked-out, uber-tacky crib, Alien gives one of the most memorable house tours ever - in a hilarious, totally insane rant that centers around the oft-repeated mantra of: "look at all my $#%^!".

In fact, the whole movie has this kind of circular, spiral structure. Key images and phrases repeat and return throughout the film, and the effect is that of going down the rabbit hole, by way of a psychedelic mind-trip. It's almost as if Korine is trying to subject us to the same brainwashing that his characters seem have gone through. These are characters who worship at the altar of Britney Spears and Girls Gone Wild videos. These are characters who seem almost insane, yet are revealed to be part of a mass-insanity that spreads almost like a virus. This is dark stuff, disturbing stuff, and Korine presents it as downright hellish.

All that said, Korine still engages in plenty of surface-level titillation. The director casts child-actor icons like Gomez, Vanessa Hudgens, and Ashley Benson as his bad girls (plus his own wife, Rachel Korine), but none brings much truly memorable to the table other than their Disney-bred pedigree. To be fair, the script portrays these girls as sort of pop-culture-slave pod people, so there isn't much for them to do except act glaze-eyed and strung out. Again, it's all a very fine line. The movie sometimes feels a bit too much like the Girls Gone Wild quasi-porn it seeks to satirize. And yet, there's undeniably that darkness there, and a real sense of contempt for its characters rather than glorification.

And so, Korine reels you in with the promise of one thing, but the end result is another thing entirely. It's not a movie glorifying spring-breakers - nope, it's a movie eviscerating 'em, going so far as to say that what they represent may very well be the death knell of the civilized world. Korine walks the line between being compelled by this world and repulsed by it. I don't think he 100% pulls off his vision. The repetition can get draggy, the pacing sometimes feels off, and there's occasionally the feeling that Korinne isn't quite sure what the hell this movie is, exactly. But he gets at something, in the movie's best moments, that makes an impression. He draws the arrow from trash-culture to apocalypse in a way that's both funny, thought-provoking, and just crazy enough to make sense.

My Grade: B+

THIS IS THE END Is An Epic Comedy Classic

THIS IS THE END Review:

- It's rare that a movie is this funny. I mean, honestly ... I can't even remember the last time I saw a new film that was anywhere even in the vicinity of THIS IS THE END. It's hard to write reviews of comedy, but I will just say this: this one feels like writers/directors Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg got away with something. Somehow, some way, they convinced Sony to give them millions of dollars to make a completely over-the-top, incredibly vulgar, balls-to-the-wall comedy about Rogen and a bunch of other actors - playing themselves - facing the full-on apocalypse. And what I've found is that the best comedies usually come about in this way ... when the movie gets made despite all common sense saying that it probably shouldn't exist. Thankfully, someone chucked common sense out the window and said "have at it." Because ... my god ... this is an instant comedy classic that will be quoted and re-watched from now until the end of days.

THIS IS THE END actually has some great character dynamics, even though all of the actors are playing heightened versions of themselves. The main arc of the movie revolves around the precarious friendship between Seth Rogen and Jay Baruchel. While Seth has settled down in Los Angeles and mostly embraced the Hollywood lifestyle, Jay has stayed away from LA, and avoided the parties and the celebrities and the fakeness. So when Jay goes to visit his old friend in LA, he hopes to spend his time with Seth playing videogames and getting high. Seth, however, wants his old friend to get along with his new friends, so he drags a reluctant Jay to a party at James Franco's new house. There, Jay doesn't exactly ingratiate himself, and looks to make a quick exit. But when he and Seth head out for a snack run, all hell breaks loose. Literally. Some kind of crazy, apocalyptic disaster breaks out (we eventually learn its exact nature, but I won't spoil it here), as giant holes open up in the earth, and, well, basically, some really crazy $#%& goes down. Seth and Jay hightail it back to Franco's house, where we're treated to an epic slaughter of the various celebrities at the party. Eventually, the surviving group consists of Rogen, Baruchel, Franco, Jonah Hill, Craig Robinson, and Danny McBride (with one or two additional surprises thrown into the mix). And from there ... hilarity ensues.

The main joke of the movie is watching these laid-back actor types try to deal with the apocalypse. And so it never comes off as smug or annoying that everyone is playing themselves, because hey, the joke is squarely on them. Each actor is playing a heightened version of themselves, a version that hilariously and smartly plays off of or subverts their real-life reputations. Rogen is the good-natured if mostly-useless stoner, Baruchel the uptight hipster, Franco the self-important artist, Hill the passive-aggressive poseur, Robinson the child-like goofball, and McBride, well, he's basically an only slightly toned-down version of Kenny Powers - a hilariously unpredictable loose cannon. Other actors who pop in for cameos do even crazier and more subversive versions of themselves. Michael Cera is awesome as sort of the anti-Michael Cera. Known as a nice guy, Cera plays Michael Cera as a coke-snorting, womanizing asshole - universally hated by all. It's funny as hell. Also great is Emma Watson, who shows up all of the guys by being, by far, the biggest badass of the bunch. There are all sorts of other great little cameos - from Kevin Hart, to Aziz Ansari, to Rihanna, to Jason Segel. And some others I won't reveal, because part of the hilarity is the surprise-factor.

The interesting thing here is that, man, the movie actually delivers on its apocalyptic premise, and delivers some huge, epic set pieces. There is some crazy-ass CGI stuff in the movie that I wasn't expecting - and Rogen and Goldberg give the movie an added sense of scale thanks to some surprisingly exciting and well-done action scenes. Sure, all of the action has a comedic bent - but man, there is some well-choreographed scenes and some insane-looking, hellspawned creatures. Suffice it to say, many full-on action movies wish they had set piece sequences and monsters as good as those in THIS IS THE END.

But, let's get down to it ... what makes THIS IS THE END so damn amazing is that it has a dream team of funny actors performing from what has to be one of the end-to-end funniest scripts ever in a big screen comedy. Almost every dialogue exchange in the movie has some great little moment in it - there's barely a minute that goes by without solid laughs. And when the movie hits its comedic high-points, it's quite simply off-the-chain, drop-dead funny, delivering some of the biggest belly-laughs of any film I've seen. Rogen and Goldberg proved with Superbad that they know how to write great back-and-forth banter, but they take it to another level here.

And every one of the main actors has multiple "home-run" moments of hilarity. Whether its Craig Robinson revealing his sordid past, Jonah Hill getting possessed by a demon (Exorcist-style), Seth Rogen recounting childhood traumas, Jay Baruchel hating on Forrest Gump, or James Franco showing off his incredibly self-indulgent art collection ... there really is no weak link. But personally, the man who brought it all to another plane of crazy-ass-awesome for me was Danny McBride. I've been a huge fan since The Foot Fist Way. I'll defend Your Highness to I'm blue in the face. And I maintain that Eastbound & Down is one of the funniest things ever on TV. But for those who still doubt the greatness of McBride, I have to imagine that they'll be converted to the cult after seeing THIS IS THE END. McBride is a freaking force of comedy nature in this one, stealing scenes with his volatile temper, total contempt for his friends, and mastery of blunt-force, hilariously vulgar insults. McBride is one of those guys who can make just about anything funny with his unique delivery, but when he's paired with material this funny and other actors this good, he's just plain legendary, Kenny Powers-style.

And hey, through all the vulgarity, rapid-fire humor, and invading demons from hell, the movie actually finds time for some genuine heart. Somehow, in spite of everything else, Goldberg and Rogen make this a movie about more than just whacked-out comedy, but also about friendship, growing up, and about being a good person. Who would have guessed?

But above all else, THIS IS THE END is just a blissfully hilarious movie that doesn't let up on laughs for its duration. It's quite simply awesome - a kick-ass end-of-world comedy that is one of the must-see movies of the summer.

My Grade: A

OZ THE GREAT AND POWERFUL: A Worthy Return to Oz?

OZ: THE GREAT AND POWERFUL Review:

- I grew up with OZ. There was the classic film, there was the 1980's Disney pseudo-sequel, Return to Oz. But most of all, there were the books. I've talked about this a lot recently, but I grew up with the Oz books because my grandparents actually had original prints of every book in the series - the originals by L. Frank Baum, as well as the later canonical entries in the series written after his passing. The Oz books were my grandmother's most treasured items - she (along with my mom) shared a love for all things Oz, and my grandmother knew the world and mythology of Oz inside and out. She often spoke of seeing the original movie in the theaters when it was released - about how the film's transition from black and white to color was, at the time, a jaw-dropping revelation. But while I liked the film, I loved the books. Part of it was how my grandmother read them to us - with her distinct, measured reading style and her never-wavering enthusiasm for the material, she transported us to the land of Oz. But I also just loved the books in and of themselves, and the weird and whimsical style that Baum (who claimed to be transcribing actual events, as related to him by Dorothy and others) wrote them in. To me, Oz was every bit as epic and as captivating a place as the other fantasy worlds I loved - Narnia, Prydain, and Middle Earth. Sure, the film had the witches and the flying monkeys - but it was, ultimately, a musical - not the epic adventure I pictured in my mind. Where was Ozma, the Nome King, Tik Tok, and Jack Pumpkinhead? Many of the Oz series' cooler elements made it into Return to Oz, but that film saw success only as a cult classic, not as a franchise-starter. But now, in an era where Lord of the Rings and Narnia had been turned into big-budget, multi-part adventure series, I wondered if the same could finally be true for OZ. Now, the pieces were in place - Sam Raimi was at the helm, the full weight of the Disney machine was there, and Oz finally seemed poised to go big on the big screen.

The new OZ has some of the elements I was looking for in a new Oz flick. First and foremost, it's visually stunning. Sam Raimi once again proves himself to be a true wizard when it comes to creating stylized worlds and roller-coaster-like sequences that are a thrill to just sit back and let yourself get immersed in. OZ is a 100% must-see in 3D, and even better in IMAX. It looks awesome. Hyper-realized fantasy worlds and landscapes and cities, massive battles, eye-melting landscapes, visceral set-piece sequences - Raimi makes OZ into a film that practically bleeds color from the screen. He also just plain has fun with the toys at his disposal. This being Raimi, he tries every trick in the book to wow you from a visual perspective. The opening of the film is in black and white, old-school 1930's aspect ratio - but then expands and colorizes as the Wizard makes his way to Oz. The 3D sees spears hurled at the audience, and all sorts of little instances of things popping off the screen. In terms of visuals, OZ is indeed a marvel.

In terms of story, OZ is less of a marvel, and a little more by-the-numbers. The film functions as a surprisingly reverent prequel - and homage to - the original 1939 classic. In fact, the movie almost seems designed to fit into the world of the original film nearly seamlessly. I have to admit, I was sort of surprised by this. In a way, it reminded me slightly of how Superman Returns felt like an overly reverent homage to the original Donner film. So this new Oz has many moments that are designed to be crowd-pleasing call backs to the 1939 film, and many plot points that are the "secret origins," of sorts, for some of the iconic aspects of that film. Given how the overall tone of the film is so different from the 1939 film (it's not a musical, for one thing), and given that that film is from, well, 1939, I wouldn't have minded if this new movie carved its own path, and/or stuck more to the tone of L. Frank Baum. There are, certainly, moments that seek to make things feel quasi-LOTR epic. Glimpses of the sprawling world-map of Oz, gleaned from the books. Large-scale battles and mammoth flying-monkey attacks. Witch-on-Wizard showdowns. All of that stuff is great fun, which makes the callbacks to the conceits of the 1939 film feel especially quaint and out of place. Did we really need, for example, the extended black-and-white intro in which we meet regular Kansas folks who will later manifest as denizens of Oz?

There are other visual cues that feel forced. The pains taken to make this film's wicked witch resemble Margaret Hamilton's iconic portrayal in the 1939 movie seem strained, and make this new witch look unnecessarily awkward. There are a couple of other examples in this vein.

OZ THE GREAT AND POWERFUL, for those not in the know, tells the story of how The Wizard first arrived in Oz, and how he became the great and powerful leader that Dorothy and friends eventually encounter. The Wizard (James Franco) begins the story as a huckster and a womanizer who works as a carnival illusionist. While being chased by some angry colleagues, he jumps into a hot air balloon to escape, but gets caught up in tornado that whisks him away from Kansas to Oz. In Oz, The Wizard finds a land besieged by a wicked witch, and finds that he is the long-expected and foretold-by-legend savior, destined to save the people from their oppressor (it can be debated to what extent there may or may not be an anti-feminist message here, but I didn't really find that). In conjunction with Glinda the Good Witch (Michelle Williams), as well as a slew of other companions, The Wizard must contend with the evil witch Evanora (Rachel Weisz), her conflicted sister Theadora (Mila Kunis), and, of course, their army of evil flying monkeys. How to counter the witch's magic, when The Wizard is not really a wizard, but simply a trickster? Franco attempts to use modern tricks and tech to go Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court on the wicked witches.

If any of this sounds familiar, it might be because Raimi once made a film very much in this same spirit - Army of Darkness. Of course, that film involved a time-lost, chainsaw-wielding antihero named Ash fighting off an army of the undead in medieval times ... but hey, it's all pretty similar in a lot of ways. And that's why many are calling OZ Sam Raimi's Disneyfied Army of Darkness. And you can't deny a lot of the structural similarities. What's interesting though is that Raimi, for better or for worse, infuses OZ with a lot of the same madcap, living-cartoon vibe as AoD. Even the Wizard's wise-cracking, smart-alecky dialogue seems almost lifted from the classic Raimi playbook, and from iconic cult-hero Ash. Now, it's sort of cool to see that anarchic sort of subversiveness make its way into this film. But it also never 100% works, because Raimi is clearly being pulled in multiple directions here. On one level, you sense him wanting to do a really subversive, madcap take on Oz. His version of The Wizard is even very much in the Ash mold - a blue-collar hero who thinks on his feet and makes all of the women around him (even the goddess-like Glinda) swoon helplessly (and man, it would have been fun to see Raimi partner-in-crime Bruce Campbell - who has a small cameo here - take a crack at playing The Wizard). And yet, this is also a Disney movie and a major family-friendly franchise-starter, and so Raimi can't really go full throttle. You can tell that Raimi is perhaps less interested, for example, in really building up the cute sidekick characters all that much. And so the silly good-flying-monkey voiced by Zach Braff, or the uber-cute china-doll girl voiced by Joey King, or the jive-talkin' munchkin played by Tony Cox ... they all feel sort of one-dimensional and tacked on (though I will say, China Girl is one of the most amazingly-rendered digital characters I've yet seen in a film). And some, like that aforementioned jive-talkin' munchkin, are just plain out of place in this world (you wouldn't see that in Lord of the Rings, that's for sure).

In any case, OZ is tonally a bit all-over-the-place. There's a little LOTR-style epicness, a little Raimi madcap action and insanity, a little Disney fairy-tale magic and cutesiness, a little broad humor, a little darkness. a little Tim Burton-esque weirdness and hyper-stylization (and a super Burton-esque / Nightmare Before Christmas-esque score courtesy of Danny Elfman) ... somehow it holds together and basically works, but it also feels like a movie with a lot of cooks in the kitchen - like no one was sure what, exactly, this movie was supposed to be. That also means that a lot of the movie's most interesting concepts - Chinatown, for example (a town where all of the denizens are made of breakable china) - don't feel as fleshed-out as they could be.

That unevenness also extends to the casting. Some of the casting choices here are just effortless and fit like a glove. Rachel Weisz as Evanora - basically perfect, pretty much iconic. Michelle Williams as Glinda - also completely works and feels exceedingly right. Both actresses disappear into the roles, which is what you want in a movie like this. But James Franco ... he's still pretty much James Franco. I just am not sure that Franco has it in him to play a fantasy character like this convincingly - to lose all of his Franco-ness and be someone else entirely, to be The Wizard. Franco does a pretty good job here, overall. He elicits some big laughs and, mostly, sells the sweeter parts of the film. But he just seems ill-suited to this type of role. Same goes for Mila Kunis. Kunis gives it her all as Theadora, but throughout the film, she still seems like Mila Kunis. There wasn't that timeless sort of quality that a Rachel Weisz brings to the table. Even worse, I kept hearing Meg Griffin whenever Kunis voiced her character post-CGI transformation. Kunis is great in that she has such a girl-next-door, blue-collar quality to her that many actresses don't. But that's not what you need for OZ - you need larger-than-life. And neither Franco or Kunis brings that to the production, and the movie suffers for it.

Despite these complaints, there's still a likability to this new OZ movie that's hard to deny. The visuals are so overwhelmingly awesome that it tends to drown out everything else. And when the movie hits its big, go-for-broke beats in its third act ... man, it really nails 'em. Raimi knows more than most how to hit a home run with those big, crowd-pleasing moments. But as much as OZ was a fun, theme-park ride-esque theatrical experience, I have to wonder what legs it will have as time goes on. Perhaps future entries in the revitalized Oz franchise will ultimately cement this film's place in the larger Oz cannon. And perhaps its legacy will prove to be less about this movie's lasting impression, and more about serving as a gateway to the world of Oz that L. Frank Baum created. The original 1939 film is famous for overcoming a fraught production filled with mishaps, re-starts, and dozens of creative challenges to somehow emerge as a classic. This new OZ may not end up with such a notorious backstory, but it does, more so than The Wizard of Oz and Return to Oz, feel more like the product of the Disney machine rather than a Peter Jackson-style labor of love. Raimi's visual inventiveness and subversive streak shines through, but it isn't quite enough to propel Oz to greatness. Funny, because the entire lesson of the film is that The Wizard must learn to strive less for greatness, and more for goodness. The movie seems to have had it slightly backwards in that regard. Still, there is enough goodness here to make the film worth checking out, and kids in particular will likely get caught up in Raimi's eye-popping adventure.

My Grade: B