Today’s 2LR is for the movie, Oz. The Great and Powerful. In
full disclosure, I probably have seen The
Wizard of Oz perhaps once or twice in my childhood, but it was a movie that
I was not really crazy about. I think I
was creeped out by the Munchkins, or perhaps the Tin Woodsman. With that said, take any opinions I have
against the world of Oz with a grain of salt, or perhaps a brick.
(Spoiler space ahead.)
The movie begins at a fairground in 1905, where a traveling
magician is about to put on his act at the fair. After a bit of issue with the local
townsfolk, and then an issue with some of the sideshow acts, the traveling
magician – Oz, short for Oscar -- takes off in a hot-air balloon to run
away. Unfortunately, being 1905 Kansas, he ends up sucked into a
tornado.
You can probably guess where Oz the Magician ends up. Thankfully, the image on the screen goes from
black-and-white to color at this point, and the image finally fills the
screen. I know why the director did
this, but it doesn’t mean that I liked it.
At any rate, Meg from Family Guy
meets up with the crashed balloon, and she takes our erstwhile shyster to the
Emerald City, for it was foretold that the savior of Oz would crash into Oz,
and also have the same name.
So, we meet another witch who helps run the Emerald City,
who seems nice but quite doubts Oz’s qualifications. She shows him the gold
that the King of Oz is entitled to, and Oz’s eyes go wide. She then tells him that he has to defeat
(e.g. kill) a wicked witch, and gives him directions to get there.
After that, Oz is going down the yellow-brick road on his
way to kill the witch. Meanwhile, we
find out that Meg’s older sister is a bit mean… especially once we find out
that Oz was sent to kill Glinda, the Good Witch. It seems that she was chased off from the
Emerald City by the death of her father, the king. The older sister then starts on Meg Griffin,
telling her that Oz (who she mysteriously was taken with) is now interested in
Glinda. Older sis uses Meg’s temper
against her, tricking her into eating a green apple, which turns her green and
ensures that she will turn into Margaret Hamilton in negative seventy years,
give-or-take.
Glinda shows Oz the townspeople who they are trying to
defend, and then mentions to him that they need to figure out a way to defeat
the witches without killing them. Seems
a tall task, but if ever you need someone to resort to trickery, use a
con-man. Oz plans out ways to use
sleight-of-hand style tricks and devices to defeat both the Flying Monkeys as
well as the “Winkie Guards” (see, this is why I can’t take Oz overly
seriously). He also creates the famous
smoke machine, fakes his own death so that the people of Oz treat it as if his
spirit is coming back from the grave to help them, and manages to freak out
both witches sufficiently to get them running.
Glinda takes care of the other advisor by breaking her magic necklace
and starting a Raiders of the Lost Ark sequence on her, and
Meg just flies off cackling.
(spoiler space over)
What did we learn?
Good question. All I know is that
in human history, it’s usually not a good idea to turn the governance of a
country over to a con-man, no matter how “reformed” he seems. As for the movie itself, I feel rather
ambivalent towards it. I suppose it’s a decent waste of ninety minutes, though
it’s not as if you’ll be overcome by the story of Oz’s magical conversion to
the most honest con-man who’s still really a massive con-man, nor Meg Griffin’s
descent into madness. I suppose the best
message to come out of this movie is, “Never eat a green apple.”
Final review: 1.9
No comments:
Post a Comment