Showing posts with label Rachel Weisz. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rachel Weisz. Show all posts

Friday 8 March 2013

Oz the Great and Powerful



Oz the Great and Powerful is a film which feels like it’s snuck up on me. I was aware of its development and saw a billboard the other day but other than that it has had very little promotion for a $200 million movie. Still, while looking for something to watch at the cinema on a Friday night we found the movie was opening and risked a busy Friday screening to see the film blind. By blind, I mean without trailers and reviews etc. Not actually blind. That’s best saved for the Twilight movies.

Oz is based on the novels of L. Frank Baum and is a sequel of sorts to 1939’s The Wizard of Oz. The film is set in the same world and features many of the characters found in the MGM classic but is updated in tone and effects and focuses on the story of the Wizard of Oz – how he came to Oz and how he became who he was when Dorothy dropped in years later. The movie begins in beautiful monochrome black and white and 4:3 aspect ratio as we find ourselves in Kansas in 1905. The arrogant but charming circus magician Oz (James Franco) is having yet another disastrous appearance on stage and is booed off. Back in his caravan he spies a weightlifter coming for him after Oz interfered with his woman. Oz escapes aboard a hot air balloon and ends up in the eye of a tornado which transports him to the brightly coloured (and widescreen) Land of Oz. In Oz he meets the Witch Theodora (Mila Kunis) who asks for help in defeating the wicked Witch Glinda (Michelle Williams) in exchange for a place on the throne as King of Oz.

Monday 27 August 2012

The Bourne Legacy


Running parallel in time to The Bourne Ultimatum, The Bourne Legacy stars Jeremy Renner as black ops operative Aaron Cross. After completing a gruelling hike across the Alaskan wilderness, Cross arrives at an isolated cabin where he meets a fellow operative (Oscar Isaac). Due to events elsewhere, linked to the plot of the first film in the series, the people running the secret Operation Outcome of which Cross is a member decide to shut it down by killing all staff involved. A drone attacks Cross but he manages to escape and tracks down scientist Dr. Marta Shearing (Rachel Weisz) who he hopes can lead him to stocks of the pills he needs to remain a superhuman.

With a plot that I didn’t fully understand and some decent action set pieces, The Bourne Legacy is a film that is not without some merit but overall I could probably have lived without seeing.