Month: July 2013

Bluray Review: Oz The Great and Powerful

Disney’s Oz The Great and Powerful brings a pristine Oz back to life in the modern film-making era of CGI. This squeaky clean movie looks so crystal clear that you’ll see right past it. While the world is beautiful, the lack of any events and real character development makes for a nice way to fall asleep. Young kids may still enjoy the film, but anyone hoping that Oz The Great and Powerful has the charm of the MGM classic will be saddened that they aren’t watching that film instead.

One could only begin to imagine if Sam Raimi had the ability to make the film like Return to Oz. Now how awesome would that be? Instead we’re stuck with a film that spends more time with its characters wandering around, falling upside down, and doing anything else but having a good time.

Don’t let it fool you, even though this world looks bright and colorful – every character is afraid and wants the Wizard to kill a witch. It’s not that positive of a film and it isn’t helped by the fact that the Wizard isn’t all that likable of a character in the first place.

What surprised me is that even after watching the film and not exactly enjoying it, I still found the special features to be great. They are very informative, straight to the point, and yet funny and light-hearted. Walt Disney and the Road to Oz explains how Walt Disney always wanted to make an Oz film along with how that idea influenced his other projects. Giving this context to the Oz The Great and Powerful really makes it seem much more important than a simple summer blockbuster film. My Journey in Oz by James Franco is a personal interview series that has these film-makers just being down to Earth humans as they discuss the making of the film. In the world of cut and dry film extras, this should definitely be a new formula that other Bluray releases try. Other features talk about the production, character, and sound designs.

As it stands, Oz The Great and Powerful is a different kind of Bluray. Recently the Blurays that I’ve been reviewing are good films while the special features needed more work. This time around, the film skews way too young while the extra features make owning a Bluray worth it. Oz The Great and Powerful is a buy if you have kids and if you don’t you might not want to bother with it.

Bluray Review: Upside Down

We rarely review love stories here on StuffWeLike, but Upside Down has a new twist that is visually breath-taking. Imagine two planets so close to each other that you could see the surface from the opposite planet. Of course each planet has its own unique gravity. Those from one planet would still be pulled from their own planet’s gravity as they visit the other planet. So literally everything on the other planet would be upside down for them. Insert a typical boy meets girl story and you’ve got Upside Down.

That being said while the premise can capture your imagination, the story itself is weak. It’s led by dull characters and mediocre dialog. The only gem here is the world. It’s beautiful to look at. It’s simply a shame that so much time went into the crafting this instead of improving the basics of the film.

The special features are decent. Many of them focus on the visuals of the film, which is fine but once you’ve seen one video about how they made x CGI scene, do you really want to see another video about an additional CGI scene? It kinda gets old pretty fast.

Upside Down is a film that I recommend you see just because it’s visually stimulating. More than likely you’ll never watch it again, so I’d say rent it.