OZ THE GREAT AND POWERFUL

Sam Raimi's prequel to the WIZARD OF OZ is a movie in which I can see so much to admire but which bored me for all of its overlong two hour ten minute runtime.  

I loved the visual design of the black and white prologue in a turn of the century Kansas carnival, where our anti-hero conman, conjurer and lothario, Oz, escapes an angry husband by taking off in a hot air balloon that will whisk him to a land of his subconscious that he has narcissistically called Oz.  I love the riot of CGI colour and subversive naughtiness by which Oz immediately romances the credulous witch Theodora (Mila Kunis), before breaking her heart and turning her to the Dark Side. I love the costume design that sees Rachel Weisz wicked with Evanora in luscious dark green ballgowns and Michelle Williams' good witch Glenda in gorgeous shimmering white. I love the casting of James Franco - who has always been almost too handsome, and painfully wooden and uncomfortable with that beauty.  His too wide smile and slightly hammy acting perfectly suits the conman role.  Most of all, I love the idea that despite all his petty cunning, Oz is really an idealist, who is full of admiration for Edison's inventions, and wonder at the power of cinema. In fact, OZ can be read as a movie about how cinema saves lives, much like ARGO.

The problem is that the movie just takes too long to motor through its various machinations to finally get Oz into his confrontation with the newly wicked Evanora and Theodora.  It also seems too adult for kids and too kiddie for adults - in sharp contrast to Pixar who seem to be able to entertain both groups simultaneously.  How much of the target kiddie audience really get why Evanora turned wicked, and why Oz' final victory is rather ambiguous? And how many adults were squirming with boredom during the whole munchkin, quadling city scene - in fact, for much of the final 90 minutes?

OZ THE GREAT AND POWERFUL has a running time of 130 minutes and is rated PG in the USA.  The movie opens this weekend in Argentina, Australia, Chile, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Hungary, Israel, Italy, Kuwait, Malaysia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Portugal, Macedonia  Russia, Serbia, Singapore, Slovenia, Thailand, the Ukraine, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Iceland, India, Ireland, Japan, Lithuania, Mexico, Mongolia, the Philippines, Poland, Romania, Spain, Turkey, the UK and the USA.  It opens next week in Belgium, France, the Netherlands, Estonia, Finland, Norway, Sweden and Taiwan.

iPad Round-Up 1 - RABBIT HOLE

RABBIT HOLE is an earnest but workman-like film about grief, adapted for the screen by playwright David Lindsay-Abaire (INKHEART) and directed in an uncharacteristically conservative manner by John Cameron Mitchell of HEDWIG AND THE ANGRY INCH and SHORTBUS fame.  The overall effect is of a sensitive and well-acted TV movie - worth watching but curiously unmemorable.

The movie stars Nicole Kidman and Aaron Eckhart as an affluent, suburban couple grieving for their son who was killed in a car accident eight months before the movie began.  Grief tests their marriage.  The wife reacts by clearing out her son's possessions, opting out of group, wanting to move house and, perhaps, most disturbingly, by striking up a friendship with her the preternaturally sensitive teen who was driving the car in the accident.  The husband seems to be much more open about his grief and rage and feels frustrated by his wife's secretive and volatile behaviour - almost tempted into an affair but with the fortitude to bend toward his wife one last time.  

Kidman got the plaudits for her performance - including an Oscar nomination - and she is just fine in her role - particularly good in a scene where she secretly returns to the City hoping to find the life she left behind only to realise it has left HER behind. But her complete shut-down restraint -  very well calibrated - makes for a sterile hole at the centre of the film, and I'm not sure the film survives it. This isn't helped by the rather flat, uninteresting work behind the screen from John Cameron Mitchell and his regular DP Frank DeMarco using a RedOne.  What saves the film is Aaron Eckhart in what is probably his best performance to date. He manages to combine great sensitivity and humour  - and in the key cathartic scene he never trips into hysterical melodrama but keeps it authentic.  It's a less showy performance as a result, and perhaps went overlooked for that reason, but it's completely emotionally devastating. 

RABBIT HOLE played Toronto 2010 and was released last year in Canada and the USA. It was released earlier this year in Sweden, Russia, Denmark, Ireland, the UK, Greece, Italy, Australia, Singapore, Finland, Serbia, Croatia, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Turkey, Poland, Brazil, Indonesia and Argentina. It is available to rent and own.  Nicole Kidman was nominated for Best Actress at the 2011 Oscars but lost to Natalie Portman for BLACK SWAN.

INKHEART - disappointingly dull

Bookish Mortimer Folchart (Brendan Fraser) and his teenage daughter Meggie (Eliza Bennett) have a rare gift. They are "Silvertongues". When they read a book aloud the characters come to life. Indeed, they can be "read out" into the real world. The only catch is that someone from the real world has to be "read in" to take their place. Ten years ago, Mortimer discovered this gift when he read a rare book called Inkheart. By mistake, he read out a thug called Capricorn (Andy Serkis) and read in his wife (Sienna Guillory). Now a confrontation beckons. Capricorn wants Mortimer to read out The Shadow - an evil power who will help Capricorn dominate the world: meanwhile Mortimer wants to read out his wife......

Thus we have the perfect set-up for a children's adventure story full of magic, wonder, peril, daring escapes and true love. But INKHEART feels heavy and lacks momentum. Instead of Matthew Vaughn's dazzling colour, wit and pace in STARDUST, Iain Softley's direction is as turgid as his grey brown colour palette. Moreover, the narrative structure has too much scampering about Italy after things or people that could easily have been condensed. But clunky direction aside, the fundamental problem is that the narrative is far more concerned with ideas than action - and action is subordinated to making a point. Author Cornelia Funke asks us whether, to quote Thomas Hardy, "character is fate"? If an author has written a character as a self-interested, callow man, can he triumph over this? 

So, in this film, a relatively straightforward rescue narrative becomes a rather back-and-forth affair. We get to Capricorn's castle early on and are set for a big show-down. But a fascinating character called Dustfinger (Paul Bettany) throws the movie off track with a petty, self-interested and all too human evasion. Dustfinger wants to be read back into the book, and he desperately wants to prove to the author of Inkheart (Jim Broadbent) that he can be better than his written character. Bettany's performance is heart-breaking and stands in sharp contrast to the leaden performances from Fraser (whom I normally love) and the camp performances from Serkis, Mirren and Broadbent.The problem is that this very cerebral, very philosophical sub-plot leeches energy from the main storyline and distracts attention. Worse still, it raises expectations that it cannot satisfy given the constraints of the genre.

I am rather disappointed in this movie. Softley has directed movies with real panache and intellectual bite - notably THE WINGS OF THE DOVE. I very much enjoyed THE THIEF LORD - another Cornelia Funke adaptation. And I also very much like Brendan Fraser in his family adventure movies. But Fraser is done a disservice by material that is fundamentally not about adventure at all, but about self-reflection.

INKHEART is on release in Germany and the UK. It opens in Brazil on Christmas Day. It opens in Italy on January 9th and in Taiwan, Turkey and the US on January 23rd and in France on January 28th It opens in Argentina on February 5th, in the Netherlands on February 12th, in Russia on March 19th and in Finland on April 3rd.