Review: ‘Oz the Great and Powerful’

“Oz the Great and the Powerful” is kind of a weird movie, as it is a prequel to a very popular film, but legally speaking can’t be too associated with that other very popular film, so some things can be referenced but others can’t, and we’re all like, “come on, we all know what’s going on here, why all the squabbling over copyrighted imagery?” Anyway, here it is, a prequel to “The Wizard of Oz,” the origin story of the man behind the curtain and the three witches who battle for control of the Oz empire.

Oscar “Oz” Diggs (James Franco, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Pineapple Express) is a carnival magician in turn of the century America, in the heartland of Kansas. He’s also a bit of a scumbag, as he woos local girls with the same story he gives everyone, but also at least knows he is a bit of a scumbag when he finds out that an old flame is getting married to some dude, and he refuses to stop it from happening because he feels like he doesn’t deserve such a nice person (and probably also because he doesn’t want to get locked down).

Then he ends up in a hot air balloon in a tornado and BOOM! he’s in the magical land of Oz, full of colorful CG flora and fauna, and without a ruler temporarily, as the Wicked Witch causes havoc all over the land and keeps everyone afraid. And there is a standoff between Glinda the Good (Michelle Williams, Blue Valentine) and her sister Evanora (Rachel Weisz, The Bourne Legacy, The Fountain) for control over the land, while their third witch sister Theodora (Mila Kunis, Ted) stumbles across Oz in his hot air balloon basket and figures this is the great wizard of legend that everyone has been waiting for. And when Oz finds out that this beautiful lady will take him to a grand palace where he will be king just because he fits the parameters for some sort of prophecy, he gladly falls in line and tries to take full advantage of the situation.

So the movie is pretty much about how Oz is a womanizing dirt bag with no problems using others for his own selfish gains. But as he sets out on this journey to kill the wicked witch in order to save the land of Oz, he discovers that there is actually a little something inside him that wants to be good, and he doesn’t want to be a con man and a trickster, and slowly yet surely (because this is after all a PG-rated Disney family movie), he decides to use his skills to help others instead of just himself.

I really did not expect much from this movie, it looked like just another corporate attempt to make $1 billion in box office receipts based on an already well known property, and while it is still all of that, it is actually kind of entertaining, even if only in spurts. The opening scenes set in Kansas, shown in black and white and in a 4:3 aspect ratio more common of the movies of the 1930s, were all nice and managed to set up Oz, but you could feel the packed theater fidgeting and ready for that tornado to come through and get this story rolling along. The transition to widescreen and full color is beautiful, but did I really need five minutes of Oz floating down a river looking at all the different plants and butterflies and whatnot?

And then the whole “who is the Wicked Witch” deal was all pretty obvious from the get go, so there was not much suspense in who ended up doing what, and there must be a good twenty to thirty minutes dedicated solely to Oz trying to convince people that he is not a real wizard and can’t kill a real witch, only to be talked into giving it the old college try.

Being directed by Sam Raimi (the Evil Dead trilogy, the Spider-Man trilogy, Drag Me to Hell), there are a few moments here and there containing his trademark Raimi-isms – a swooping camera here, inanimate objects flying around, the specter of death and menace in ethereal forms, this stuff pops up, and some of the Witch stuff is very much Raimi’s style, but in the end, this could have been directed by almost anyone. At times it felt like Tim Burton’s “Alice in Wonderland” or Peter Jackson’s “The Hobbit.” I guess all of these big budget CG-riddled fantasy blockbusters are just blending together.

So this is an okay movie though ultimately pointless, one that is sure to entertain most people, as it did me, and will surely leave their collective memories, leaving them all to struggle to remember what they even liked about it to begin with. The acting is fine, and it’s fun seeing James Franco in a leading role, and the more Mila Kunis the better, but still this movie doesn’t offer anything to latch on to emotionally and just exists as an exercise in homaging a copyrighted work without using any of the actual copyrights (since this is a Disney joint and Warner Brothers owns the rights to the original “The Wizard of Oz“). When it’s all said and done and the smoke clears, this is a lot like the Wizard of Oz himself – a big, loud spectacle, hiding a whole lot of nothing behind the curtain.