1 drink – every time someone says “Oz”
1 drink – every time you see a flying primate
1 drink – every time someone does “magic”
1 drink – every time you are assaulted by CGI backgrounds
1 drink – every time someone says “wizard”
1 drink – every time you see a music box

The film’s premise is great. We get to follow around the Wizard of Oz and see how he came into power. Who doesn’t want to see that? Unfortunately the writing and production design botch a great idea that could have easily been the best film of our generation. Like so many of today’s films aimed at a family audience, Oz: The Great and Powerful is a giant, CGI pile of crap. Oooh. Sick pixels, Hollywood! Unfortunately, the only people impressed by this type of shit are people who occasionally crap their pants or might sneak a booger into their gullet every now and then.

Sam Raimi has failed to impress me for a long time as a director. His movies reek of quick fixes and the dreaded “We’ll do it in post!” mantra. Whereas Raimi’s original films were about practical effects and visual trickery, ever since Raimi hit the jackpot with the unbearably CGI Spider-Man, he has simply become lazy. The end result of that laziness is a movie like Oz. It’s simply not good. The sets lack the detail that is needed to impress. They are frequently marred by hideous CGI that looks about as real as the offer of riches from some African prince in your spam folder. Pacing-wise, the movie loses some steam once it gets to Oz, which has some of the weakest production design around. The costumes are shit, the props are shit, and even more disappointing, the characters are shit.

James Franco is one of my favorite actors, but even I have to admit he was garbage as Oz. His portrayal relies on the premise that you buy Franco as some womanizing huckster. Unfortunately, Franco is only really great at playing freewheeling stoners and simple duders. Playing a character with some actual depth seems to have thrown him for a loop. Mila Kunis is an even worse casting choice than Franco as Theodora, the soon to be wicked witch. Kunis lacks the ability to be terrifying, especially with the world’s worst witch make-up, which makes her look like Martian Manhunter’s sister. Rachel Weisz is forgettable as Theodora’s sister. Michelle Williams doesn’t do a half bad job as Glenda, but that’s as far as I’m willing to go.

As far as the look of the film goes, there is very little that is wondrous about the movie. The costumes are particularly awful. Theodora looks like she might be going to the Kentucky Derby. Glenda has some boring clothing. The sets look cheap, non-functional, and they try to extend them with CGI. With a little more time and effort, things could have gone off right, but they didn’t.

I’d like to show up in Oz with a copy of this movie and ask the Wizard to make it better… but I doubt he could do that. Not even magic could make this movie suck less.

Final Synopsis: What a disappointment this movie was. Oh well, at least there is always the original.

Points Lost: -1 for poor acting, -1 for shitty sets, -1 for a weak story, -1 for half-assed production design, -1 for too much CGI, -1 for the Martian Manhunter make-up, -1 for that stupid CGI monkey

Lesson Learned: If James Franco is playing a stoner, then he’s not really worth watching.

Burning Question: Are the people in Oz mentally retarded?

Oz: The Great and Powerful
3/10

1 drink – every time somoene says “witch”
1 drink – every time you see some piece of equipment that shouldn’t exist in the time period
1 drink – every time someone or something dies
1 drink – every time a witch does some magic
1 drink – every time someone says “Hansel”
1 drink – every time someone says “Gretel”

The Wilford Brimley: Whenever Hansel takes an injection, kill your beer.

Hansel & Gretel is only loosely inspired by the fairy tale that it takes its name from. At the beginning of the film, young Hansel and Gretel toss a witch into her oven… from there, the story becomes somewhat clichéd and predictable. Hansel and Gretel travel around the world killing witches. They are hired by the folks in a town to find some missing children. Of course, all is not as it seems and the story comes unraveling quicker than the mummy in Monster Squad.

Wirkola does a fantastic job as a director. Visually, Hansel & Gretel is great fun to look at. It has a dark tone that runs throughout, and Wirkola does a great job of not pandering towards a family crowd. He earns his R-rating the right way, with plenty of swearing, blood, and even some boobs. Wirkola has an eye for action scenes, and while some will be put off by Wirkola’s awkward blend of horror and action, I didn’t mind it too much.

What I did mind was the story itself. How can it be this weak of a story. The characters’ ridiculous weaponry, which would have made the two richer than rich on its own, is only compounded by piles of historical inaccuracy and things that simply don’t fit in the world. As for the story itself, Hansel & Gretel feels like a direct rip-off of the first Blade film… only instead of vampires we have witches. Does anyone else find the “one night in a thousand years” mechanic completely lame?

The cast of the film does a solid job. Of course, the movie feels a little beneath Jeremy Renner, who is honestly a better actor than is required for this type of film. He doesn’t phone it in either, which must have been a tempting approach. Gemma Arterton is less developed as Gretel, but she does a fine job. Famke Janssen is solid as the lead witch. There are also nice bit roles for Peter Stormare and Pihla Viitala.

Hansel & Gretel’s best aspect is its special effects. While I normally don’t dig CGI, it is used appropriately within the film as an augmentation to the film’s practical effects. There are plenty of fun witch battles and some nice doses of gore to go around. Of course, you’re going to have to get over the ridiculously advanced arsenal of Hansel and Gretel as they mow down people with Gatling guns, in addition to other random weapons that simply shouldn’t exist.

Overall, the film is an enjoyable enough flick. Hopefully, in the future, Wirkola will focus on telling a more creative story and not populate it with cheesy scenes and predictable twists. If he does, he might have quite a nice career going for himself.

Final Synopsis: It’s a solid film. The look and special effects are awesome. The story, not so much.

Points Lost: -1 for a weak story, -1 for anachronisms, -1 for some of Wirkola’s kid in a candy shop scenes

Lesson Learned: Hansel and Gretel invented machine guns.

Burning Question: Did anyone else find the diabetes plot element a little annoying and unnecessary?

Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters
7/10

Based on some sort of true story, Snitch is the tale of a dude who will get his nancy boy son out of jail at any cost. There’s some stuff in there about mandatory minimum sentencing to keep people from feeling like the movie is a complete stupid waste. The version I saw had a nice little documentary piece attached to it to point out how ridiculous the American penal system is. Anyway, the only way this father is going to get his son out of jail is by helping the police collar a real life drug dealer. Now this everyday business owner and all around good guy must infiltrate a seedy underworld with Shane from The Walking Dead. This will involve all sorts of tense moments, gunfire, and several bouts of intense car destruction.

This would all be well and good if the film actually had a director who was capable of pulling off the film. Instead, what we get is Ric Roman Waugh, who simply doesn’t craft the type of movie that the story calls for. Instead of giving us powerful scenes of drama and tension, Waugh busts out the dreaded shaky cam in an effort to make the film feel more immediate. It’s a travesty for what is otherwise a solid tale. The interior shots all lack life and feel rather bland. Visually, Snitch is just not getting it done. Waugh is going to need more creative shots and a better sense of movement if he wants to improve as a director.

Of course, perhaps the biggest issue with the film is that The Rock has built up such a vastly different image throughout the years than the one that is on display here. While you’re sitting there watching drug dealers bust The Rock’s balls, you keep waiting for him to turn around and knock some heads together… it never happens. The character The Rock is playing is an everyday sort of dude; which simply doesn’t work because The Rock is anything but “everyday”. He needed something to break him out of the role of giant badass guy, but it was never there. The end result is that we are left wanting.

The rest of the cast actually does a fairly nice job. Jon Bernthal is solid as an ex-convict that The Rock enlists to hook him up with some drug dealers. Barry Pepper is awesome as an undercover cop guy with some cool facial hair. It’s good to see B-Peps coming back from Battlefield: Earth… which effectively killed his career. Susan Sarandon plays a nice old bizznatch as a federal prosecutor.

If you’re coming to Snitch for action, then you’ll probably leave disappointed. The action of the film is not the highlight of the movie, with the exception of a cool semi-truck vs. cars sequence. The rest of the movie is mediocre drama and The Rock trying to seem not like a badass. In the end, there were some bad decisions made on the movie, which they’re not quite able to overcome.

Final Synopsis: Snitch is not as good as it could be. It’s just not the right movie for The Rock.

Points Lost: -1 for The Rock being miscast, -1 for weak action, -2 for shaky cam, -1 for being somewhat tame

Lesson Learned: Don’t carry around large amounts of drugs.

Burning Question: Why would you cast The Rock as an “everyman”?

Snitch
5/10

1 drink – every time someone mentions a movie title
1 drink – every time someone smokes
1 drink – every time someone drinks
1 drink – every time you see a crappy painting
1 drink – every time someone says “cum” or “came”
1 drink – every time you see fire
1 drink – every time someone says “fuck” or any form of the word

The Milky Way Special: Every time someone says Milky Way, slap your forehead. The last person to do so must kill their beer.

The film starts off with Jay Baruchel meeting up with Seth Rogen. They smoke a bunch of weed and then head over to James Franco’s pad, against Jay’s wishes. Shit starts to happen, and all of these hilarious motherfuckers must deal with the end of the world… which leads to awesome scenes of food rationing, interpersonal miscommunications, and enough obnoxious bickering to put America’s Next Top Model to shame… from what I hear. I don’t watch that. Pshh. Only losers watch that shit.

Directed by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, This is the End is a smalltime movie buoyed along by bigtime talent. Most of the film takes place inside a sparse mansion bereft of personality except for a dick statue and some of James Franco’s shitty paintings. The movie cost 25 million, but you wouldn’t know it due to the sets. It appears most of the budget went to the actors, weed, and all of the CGI destruction and demon cocks.

While the humor in This Is the End may not be for everyone, if you like dick jokes and hilarious tirades about where you should and shouldn’t shoot your load, then you’re in for a damn treat. The LPM’s on this film were pretty high, even more so if you get a kick out of this crew and all the movies they’ve been making over the years. While the film does run a little long and the LPM’s fade near the end, the first hour is an example of a premise perfectly executed. However, it’s pretty obvious that the crew pretty much wrote themselves into a boring corner near the film’s end.

The cast of the movie is excellent and everyone seems to be on target here… with the exception of Rihanna… who didn’t need to be in the movie. James Franco is hilarious as uhh… James Franco. The movie Franco is kind of a selfish d-bag, which I’m sure is way different from real life. Danny McBride is second in terms of awesomeness. His glorious “load tirade” is the stuff of Oscars. Rogen and Baruchel are ok, but most of the money lines are saved for Franco and McBride. Craig Robinson and Jonah Hill are solid as well. It’s hard to not like these guys and after watching the movie, you’ll wish you were friends with such a funny group of guys.

With all of that being said, This Is the End is definitely a male-centric movie… and even then it will only appeal to dudes who are kind of knuckleheads. You have to like swearing, stupidity, and ridiculous jokes to appreciate the film. I hesitate to call it low-brow, because there is some sort of meta humor that’s hard to pinpoint, but yeah, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to get a kick out of this shit.

Final Synopsis: I loved the movie. It dragged near the end, but I’m definitely thinking about picking it up on Blu-Ray when it comes out. At least give it a watch if you generally find any of the stars funny.

Points Lost: -1 for dragging near the end, -1 for Rihanna, -1 for a whole lot of CGI, -1 for feeling too small and confined

Bonus Points: +1 for Danny McBride’s tirades

Lesson Learned: When you’re ascending to heaven, don’t start flipping people off and swearing at them.

Burning Question: Which one of these guys would you least like to be stuck with during the apocalypse?

This Is the End
7/10

1 drink – every time someone drinks
1 drink – every time someone makes fun of Sandy’s name
1 drink – every time McCarthy sings
1 drink – every time someone uses a cell phone
1 drink – every time Sandy busts Diana’s balls

The film is about Sandy Bigelow Patterson, a dumbass who gets conned into giving all of his information to some heavyset chick in Florida. She then sets about living it up on Sandy’s dime. When the real Sandy’s life is thrown into disarray because of financial problems caused by his thief’s actions, he attempts to bring the woman to his own state to get her caught… because, apparently cops don’t bother looking too hard into identity theft cases. Now Sandy will have to kidnap his victim and dodge bounty hunters who want to take her out. Along the way, he’ll have to endure annoying singing, fat people sex, and more destroyed cars than a demolition derby. Along the way, they’ll kind of become friends and you’ll throw up in your mouth a little.

Gordon’s latest film feels a little too trite compared to his other works. Gordon clearly doesn’t grasp the intricacies of the female gender, and this is why Identity Thief fails. Melissa McCarthy is boiled down to being an obnoxious dude and little else. The complete lack of femininity makes her nothing more than a vile goblin, and when Sandy starts to like her, well… let’s just say that no one is buying it.

As far as directing goes, Gordon’s film runs a little too long and much of the writing isn’t all that impressive. There appears to be some improvisation with the lines, and while McCarthy is occasionally funny, it’s clear that Jason Bateman needs to be handed funny lines to work as a comedian. The pacing suffers thanks to the hit or miss jokes… and visually, Gordon is limited by very bland environments.

The cast is pretty crappy with the exception of the two leads, who have zero chemistry whatsoever. McCarthy is the highlight of the film, but she can’t carry the entire movie. Bateman is ok at times, but mostly, he just looks out of place and uncomfortable standing next to McCarthy. Jon Favreau is solid in a bit role… well, as bit a role as it can be considering the amazing girth of the man. Amanda Peet is unwelcome as Sandy Bigelow’s wife. Genesis Rodriguez and T.I. suck as two bounty hunters who want to capture McCarthy’s character. Robert Patrick is the only member of the supporting cast who is any good, and he’s somewhat underused.

Overall, Identity Thief should be re-titled Memory Thief, because after the movie is done and you try and remember what you just watched, you’ll have little to no ability to recall the generic humor and plot that was on display. McCarthy is wasted in the film and I’ll be looking forward to Gordon’s follow-up to Horrible Bosses, as long as he’s not tasked with creating realistic female characters.

Final Synopsis: It’s ok, but about as forgettable as a comedy can be. Give it a watch if you’re bored, but it’s not something to watch more than once.

Points Lost: -1 for poor pacing, -1 for McCarthy’s character, -1 for a lack of chemistry between McCarthy and Bateman, -1 for the bounty hunter crap, -1 for some jokes that simply aren’t funny

Lesson Learned: Don’t give out info over the phone.

Burning Question: Does anyone believe that these two would actually end up caring about one another?

Identity Thief
5/10

1 drink – every time you see the word “Google”
1 drink – every time someone says “Google”
1 drink – every time someone says “sales”
1 drink – every time Billy and Nick do something poorly or don’t understand something
1 drink – every time there is an ’80s reference
1 drink – every time you see something with Google’s colors all over it
1 drink – every time someone drinks