This film is the first prequel for Pixar. In this prequel to Monsters Inc.- a G Rated version of Revenge of the Nerds - before they were famous, Mike/Crystal and Sulley/Goodman are rival scare major students competing to be the best scarer during the Scare Games.
I thought it was quite appropriate that the scariest monster to me in this academic setting was the Dean of the school, Helen Mirren. I thought the movie was cute - although I liked Monsters Inc. better, probably because of the relationship that Mike/Crystal and Sulley/Goodman were having with the human child Boo - Mary Gibbs - in the first movie. Mike/Crystal and Sulley's/Goodman's relationships with Oozma Kappa did not have the same emotional relationship to me, even with the big Sulley/Goodman going up against Oozma Kappa. Although I did like little Mike's/Crystal's tutoring of Oozma Kappa.
I was with my nieces, so we left when the credits started. As a result, I missed the fact that there is a scene during the end credits.
Monsters University also had the premier of the Pixar short film The Blue Umbrellawhich I thought was a really cute relationship film.
In Walt Disney Pictures Oz the Great and Powerful, James Franco is Oz, a con artist carnival magician who gets caught up in a twister - and winds up in the Land of Oz.
Based on the works of L. Frank Baum and directed by Sam Raimi with music from Danny Elfman, this is a prequel to The Wizard of Oz from 1939 as elements from The Wizard of Oz is explained in Oz the Great and Powerful. Like The Wizard of Oz, at the beginning of the movie Oz the Great and Powerful, the movie starts out in black and white when it is set in Kansas - and turns into color when Franco/Oz arrives at the land of Oz. The aspect ratio of the movie also changes to the wider widescreen format and goes from monaural sound to surround sound when the movie is in the Land of Oz. And just like the original The Wizard of Oz, several characters from the black and white Kansas play characters in the land of Oz, such as Michelle Williams, Zach Braff, and Joey King.
After an unsuccessful magic show in a traveling circus, Franco/Oz gets caught in a twister while riding in a hot air balloon. When he arrives in the Land of Oz, Franco/Oz gets mistaken to be the Wizard that was described in prophecy. Franco/Oz soon gets recruited to save the Land of Oz from the wicked witch who had killed the king of Oz.
I liked the fact that the opening credits were created more like practical credits in line with the time of the movie instead of CGI credits and that practical sets were mostly used in the film. Elfman's music gives the movie a classic Hollywood movie feel to the movie. The song Almost Home from Mariah Carey is used during the end credits of the movie and is the only contemporary song in the movie. This is not a musical with characters breaking into song like in the original Wizard of Oz or as Disney musical animated fairy tale films tend to do.
While it has been years since I have read Baum's Oz series, and I have never seen the theater musical play Wicked, this felt like a true prequel to the movie The Wizard of Oz as we got to know much more of the characters from the original The Wizard of Oz movie. The story is such a tragedy, but the movie does set up the events to The Wizard of Oz movie that is set 20 years later.
I felt that Franco/Oz's relationships with the women in the beginning of the movie were a little too long to get to the story - but when Franco/Oz first arrives in the Land of Oz, it feels like riding in an attractionat Disneyland, which is quite appropriate as the movie was produced by Walt Disney Pictures. Disney had been trying to produce a film based on the Baum's Oz books since the late 1930's. Producer Joe Roth was happy to finally have a fairy tale with a male protagonist, such as the male protagonist in the origin story of Oz the Great and Powerful. Franco/Oz's desire to be a great man, obviously leads to him becoming Oz the Great and Powerful. Franco received magical training with magician Lance Burton in preparation for the role of a magician in this film. Franco and Braff reminded me of Matthew Broderick and Nathan Lane. In fact, I could see Broderick and Lane doing their roles.
The twister was much more intense and violent than the twister in The Wizard of Oz. It was more like the movie Twisterthan the sanitized fantasy version that was shown in The Wizard of Oz. In fact there were several times that I expected Franco/Oz to be seriously injured during the various episodes of the movie.
I saw the movie in regular 2-D, but the movie was obviously designed as a 3-D movie. The movie does have some scary scenes that Raimi had to edit down to get a PG rating, which is Raimi's first PG film. For those of us who were scared as children from the original The Wizard of Oz, Oz the Great and Powerful is a scarier movie for children - especially the flying baboons. I am sure the movie is even scarier in 3-D.
While this is supposedly a prequel to the movie Shrek, in that these are Puss in Boots adventures before he met Shrek, this movie definitely stands on it's own and you do not have to see the Shrek movies in order to enjoy this film. Just as in the Shrek movies, Mother Goose characters populate the land, so it is in the same world - but the film is in the style of the Zorro movies with an Hispanic Old California type of feeling. This was quite an appropriate style given Banderas background as Zorro. There is the sword slash of a P which I wish happened at least once in the movie itself instead of being done as a logo for the beginning of the film. The DreamWorks Animation logo also had the same style/feeling that was appropriate for the movie. This is a swashbuckling film with lots of action and story - so much action and story, that I was surprised the movie was only 90 minutes long.
When Puss in Boots's caper of acquiring magic beans, beans that he has been searching for all of his life, from bad guys Jack and Jill is horned in on by the equally mysterious roguish rival Kitty Softpaws Salma Hayek - the upset Puss soon falls for Kitty and eventually tells her his story to woo her. Going from a kitten orphan to a disgraced hero, Puss struggles to regain his honor - especially after meeting his estranged orphaned brother Humpty Dumpty. As a baby kitten, Puss was very cute. His eyes were very expressive - especially when he was pleading, making him irresistible. I saw the movie in 2-D - but even in 2-D, the movie looked like it was in 3-D, that is how advanced the computer graphics have become. The use of old-style filmic techniques like split-screen and film wipes give a nice contrast to the high-technology of the 3-D style computer graphics. My favorite scene is the Dance Fight, which has a strong Latin musical arrangement. The character of the Old Man in the dungeon reminds me very much of my old friend UFO Bob, that I almost thought it was him.
While there are Mother Goose characters in the movie, they have a superficial resemblance to the characters that we grew up with. I always thought of Jack and Jill as brother and sister - but in the movie they were husband and wife, with desires for making a little Jack and Jill of their own once the magic beans lead them to the legendary Golden Goose. Jack and Jill's underhanded schemes make them worthy opponents to the dashing Puss in Boots. And several of the orphanage characters were not as nice as their original Mother Goose rhymes made them out to be. Executive Produced by Guillermo del Toro, his Commandante is determined to get Puss for the Commandante's belief of Puss's betrayal of Puss's heroic ideals from his hometown. It is rather sad to see what leads up to Humpty's story on the bridge, that his story has became so famous, especially after what you see of Humpty's childhood plans and dreams.
This is a wonderful family movie and I am so glad it had a theatrical release instead of going direct to DVD as was originally intended. It is a much more interesting story than the typical direct to DVD release. From the initial box-office, Paramount Pictures made a wise decision in releasing it theatrically. I think Puss in Boots is a better movie than Shrek, and I loved Shrek, although Shrek was more into turning the traditional fairy tale story upside-down. Puss in Boots is more of a traditional fairy tale story = that turns the Mother Goose characters upside-down.
While Carpenter's The Thing is closer to the original story by Campbell, this version of The Thing is closer to the Howard Hawkesversion ofThe Thing From Another World, although it is still the same basic story as Carpenter's The Thing. Scientist Ulrich Thomsenbrings in paleontologist Mary Elizabeth Winsteadto study the discovery in Antarctica. When the frozen alien thaws out and suddenly comes alive, the men and women at the research station not only must fight for their lives - but must discover which one of them has also turned into a thing.
I believe this is the first instance of the movies explaining the thing's chameleon/cloning capability of becoming another person. This movie is just as graphic as Carpenter's The Thing, including pieces of the thing becoming other things. Since this is a Norwegian outpost, it backs up Carpenter's The Thing as the first outpost that was attacked by the thing.
When Winstead is in her lab at the beginning of the film, she is listening to the Men at Worksong Who Can It Be Now. This was appropriate to the future paranoia that will happen in the movie. The end scenes in the movie with the spaceship could have been done at the research post. As it was, it was basically the end scenes from the movie Alienand really broke the format of all the terror taking place at one location as well as just seeming unnecessary. I started to go ho-hum when the movie went in that direction. As a result, Winstead's character was based on Sigourney Weaver's character in Alien.
For a research post, the scientists have a lot of weapons - especially flame throwers. Flame throwers are not normal military weapons, for scientists to even have flame throwers is questionable. I might understand if flame throwers are used for ice mining, but they did not establish that and it is still a lot of flame throwers.
Do not leave as the end credits roll as there are scenes which lead directly into Carpenter's The Thing.
Rated R for graphic violence and language. Running time: 103 Minutes.
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