Oz the Great and Powerful Movie Review

 

James Franco as the Wiz

 

Ponyboy wanted to watch it and it was a few dollars. Why not. A review of Oz the Great and Powerful (2013) starring James Franco.

I think the theme of this movie is that religion is a lie but still a good thing. Which, is a pretty lukewarm take to have. It could also be that you can do anything if you try hard enough and meditate on it long enough, which is also a lukewarm take. Both of them are wrong.

The wicked witch of the west has pretty bizarre motivation. Even after finding out her sister is lying, she still sides with her instead of, like, killing her. I would just kill my sister if she turned me green forever.

The effects this movie were generally pretty ugly. Monkey guy looked terrible. China doll looked bad too. When the witch turned green, it looked like Son of the Mask. Very fake and worse than how The Wizard of Oz looked 75 years earlier. Not surprised nor impressed with Disney.

 

James Franco with a mustache just looks like Rusty Cage. I thought he was gonna build a big guillotine to execute the witch. That never happened though.

Can't believe this is real. 3/10

Darkman Movie Review

"If you want a dude who wear a mask all day...." MF DOOM by Amar Stewart

Since Evil Dead 2 was so fun, I was in the mood for another Raimi movie. So the Pony and I picked up Darkman.

A review of Darkman (1990) starring the guy from the Cherry Bomb cover (do NOT research!).

This movie was a lot like Spider-Man 2 in a lot of ways. Dude literally gets his lab destroyed, his life is ruined, but he rebuilds his lab to rebuild his life and get vengeance. Sound familiar? I think the biggest contribution to the similarity is Danny Elfman's score. This is the most prominent movie score I've ever heard, and it sounded so much like the Spider-Man movies. It was good.

But this movie still stands as a very different project from the Spider-Man movies. Peyton's character throughout the movie is shocking at times. It's refreshing to see an action movie where the hero is evil as well. He just happens to be less evil than the guys he's fighting. The very ending was shocking. The last ten seconds especially.... that was wild. I really wish I had a pink elephant.

6/10, I'm bringing this one to Canada.

Evil Dead 2 Movie Review

Ash flies a baguette plane.

This is it. Evil Dead 2 is the pinnacle of Raimi movies. It's campy, creative, seemingly low budget, and it has Bruce Campbell in it.

It's wild that this whole movie only exists to promote Eminem records that won't be out for a while. For real, the main characters sing "Mockingbird" multiple times. And then at the end Ash ends up at a "Castle." And all the chainsaw massacre-ing is quite reminiscent of Relapse. They were putting a lot of faith in Marshall there to deliver on his records.

The camera work and effects are really creative. I loved the stop motion of all the deadites. Especially Linda's animation at the beginning and Henrietta's animation at the end look amazing. And I have no idea how they did the tree grabbing Ash at the very end. That was wild to watch.

I'd never seen this movie, but I have played Evil Dead: Hail to the King on Sega Dreamcast. So half the time I was watching Evil Dead 2, I was just thinking about how this scene looks in the game.

6/10. Very fun movie. Would 100% watch with a horror fan during Halloween season.