Oz The Great & Powerful Movie Review

Haven't been to a movie for a long time. Can't recall the last one.

Today dragged bro to see the first day opening of  The Great and Powerful because saw the huge poster first at Vivocity and later at Orchard Road (super huge one).

From the posters, I thought there was a talking teapot with eyes and a mouth. Bro insisted it wasn't a talking teapot since the lid just happened to look like it has eyes and a mouth.

Turned out he was right. There are no talking teapots in the movie. There is a "Teapot Land", land of teapots (that's what I said the moment I saw it in the movie, which made bro smile in the semi-darkness).  

We watched the 6.45 pm Thursday slot. It started at 7.05 and ended at 9.05 p.m.. Very late. 2 hours show. Didn't expect it to be so long, although I wondered if it was going to be that long. Usually, CGI shows take about 1 hr 15 mins or 1 hr 30 mins.

Paid $15 instead of $19 because of NTUC card. Pretty good deal. Cool. We skipped the popcorn combo thing.

As expected of Disney, all's well that ends well. Bro said at least there was a good ending. I said of course, it's Disney. They always have good happy endings.

Mm... nothing really special about it. I wanted to see it because the posters looked really fabulous and I wanted to see the teapot. Bro was interested in the flying monkey in the posters.

The monkey Finly is very realistically done, wet nose and everything. Bro thinks it's not that perfect. But I think it's still fabulous. I like Finly.

I marvelled over the CGI. Amazing. The technology is on a different, even higher level than Japanese animation. Imagine the kind of technology these Americans have.  I imagined black cables everywhere on the computer room floor and a super computer sitting somewhere there.

Overall, quite enjoyable. I think bro enjoyed it more than me.  It was a little difficult for me to suspend disbelief especially when Oz landed in color and flowers started dancing and stuff.

At the start though, it's black and white, which made Bro ask, "It's in black and white?". I said, "Later, there'll be color.".  I actually didn't pay attention that it's black and white until he mentioned it. I was pretty sure there would be color later because I saw a trailer at the website some nights ago that was in color.

Nothing special though. Just typical, I guess. There were no kids at the time we watched.  Not crowded. We changed seats, moved 2 seats up along our row because of the too loud sound system on the left.  Lido 1.

At the end as we took the escalator down, Bro said it's explaining what went on before. Was rather surprised he realized it. I said, "Yeah, it's a prelude to the Dorothy one. It explains how the wicked witch came about etc...".

He said they just change the story any way they like. I said, "Well, it's quite an interesting prelude that explains things.".

The big bold spread of words "The Great & Powerful" on the posters made me think that was the movie title. At the ticket counter, that's the title I said to the girl. She said, "Oz?".  Sudden realization, I said, "Yeah".

Very lovely and nice ticket counter girl, by the way.

No. Let me amend something: The movie was special in that it had this really amazing China porcelain doll girl that totally made me stare. At the crack lines on her head, her beautifully blue expressive eyes and eyelashes, her shiny black shoes painted on her feet, the beauty of the perfection of her face. Amazing.

That's what I meant by how great their CGI technology is or has become.

She was so beautiful, it made me think a dirty thought about her while I was watching her. (What if I stroked a finger between her thighs and aroused her sexually?). I know. It's a bad thought. But it's a privately bad thought, so I have a right to it.

Don't tell bro. He would be incredulous I could even think of such a thing.

Close up as she talked to Oz in bed, the sparkling light in the details of the blue lace at the top of her dress made me wonder what was under it.  I imagined a flat, white-cracked porcelain chest, and was switched off immediately. That was the second dirty thought after the first that occured in the same scene of her being tucked in bed by Oz. 

I like that while Oz couldn't fix the little girl's legs (make her walk again), he was given the chance to fix the little porcelain girl's legs, with quick-drying glue, interestingly enough. It made viewers/me feel a little better.

While in the bus on the way home, bro and I talked more about the movie. I said it explains how the scarecrow came about. One of them must have left the scarecrow "army" made by Oz and wandered around thereafter.

For the lion, it was seen in a moment trying to scare Oz but fled from Oz's red smoke trick.

Bro was confused for a moment about the characters in the Dorothy Oz version, but I assured him there was a tin man that I didn't see in this movie. So, how did the tin man come about?

Also, in this movie, Oz idolized Thomas Edison. But according to the book "Dreamland: Adventures in the Strange Science of Sleep", Edison is actually the cause of our sleep problems today. Because he didn't think sleep was important, he invented the lightbulb that destroyed our natural sleep cycles.  Problem is, nobody has realized that.


[*update 9 Mar Sat: Bro told me today that in the interview of the girl who voiced the porcelain girl on Youtube that he watched when we got back after the movie,  the Land of Teapots is actually called "China Town".  Hmm... good name, although at first it sounds like the usual meaning of  "Chinatown".

He also said Amazon sells the 14 inch doll in plastic, although they can't replicate the cracks on her because only porcelain can do that.  I asked if the plastic looks exactly like her. He said yes. I said that's cool.

He said they also sell the green witch.  I grimaced and said that's awful, thinking how awful it would look.]