Joey King the Great and Adorable

      Joey King the talented and adorable  thirteen-year-old actress  of “Ramona and Beezus,” has two new movies in the can.  The first, OZ THE GREAT AND POWERFUL, is a  2013 Disney fantasy adventure film directed by Sam Raimi of “Spider Man” fame. The film is a loose adaptation from the L. Frank Baum’s 1900 novel “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz,” and is a prequel of sorts to both the novel and of the famous 1939 MGM film.

      A hack stage magician finds himself unwittingly carried from Kansas in his now famous balloon to a fantasy world, where he must use his wits and his trickery to stay clear of the clutches of three witches who have various plans for him and suspect he is not quite as “great and powerful” as he claims.  Joey King plays a character named “China Girl,” a life-like  porcelain doll. Oz, (James Franco) a charlatan and snake-oil salesman rescues China girl and glues her back together after her family is smashed by an evil witch Evanora, (Rachel Weisz). The subtext here is clear, even if you’re fragile you can conquer great things.

     Even though Joey is credited as a character, she evidently does not actually appear and her presence in the movie is limited to voice acting with CGI providing her on screen avatar. This amounts to an overall disappointment. Hey, what can I say, we enjoy watching Joey's charming effervescence on the big screen.

 

     Joey is a very much in demand. Becoming the latest Hollywood “IT” girl. Her busy schedule includes the upcoming thriller, WHITE HOUSE DOWN (2013),  directed by Roland Emmerich and staring Channing Tatum.

     Joey plays Emily Cale the daughter of  a Secret Service agent who is tasked with saving the life of the U.S. President after the White House is overtaken by a paramilitary group.  Poor Tatum has the unlikely misfortune of having taken his daughter to work on his first day on the job in an effort to bond with her. King seems to have a natural affinity for playing the “little girl in jeopardy.” A role having reprised in “Battle Los Angeles,” and “Quarantine.” This time around King is taken hostage, and her presence naturally adds an extra strata of artificial drama as the stakes are now even higher. Our hero not only must save the life of the President but rescue his daughter as well.  We can only hope this result in King getting more screen time than her previous outing as little-girl-lost in “Dark Knight Rises.”