We're Off to See the Wizard: A Review of Oz the Great and Powerful

Oz the Great and Powerful is a milestone of sorts for director Sam Raimi, arguably best known for having directed the hugely successful Spider-Man series of films from 2002 to 2007: it is his first family-oriented film.

Oz, a prequel of sorts to the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz, which in turn was based on the well-loved book by L. Frank Baum, is the story of Oscar Diggs (James Franco), a two-bit, womanizing circus magician. He starts the movie as a thoroughly unlikeable character, with a taste for gullible young women, and a nasty tendency to abuse his assistant Frank (Zach Braff). When one of his scams to bed women goes sour, Oscar finds himself running for his life, and in his desperation he jumps into a hot air balloon just as a tornado hits the sleepy Kansas town where the circus is camped. The tornado takes him to a wonderful, terrifying land he's never seen before, the land of Oz. There, he will meet three witches (Mila Kunis, Rachel Weisz and Michelle Williams) as well as several strange and fascinating people and creatures like a flying monkey (voiced by Braff) a girl made of china (voiced by Joey King, who also appears earlier in the movie as a crippled girl), and will ultimately come to learn what it truly means to be great.

One of the best things to be said for this film is that it has Raimi's signature firmly across it, from the striking, imaginative visuals to the generous helpings of humor and sometimes even fright. Even some of the slightly cheesy dialogue delivery has a bit of a Raimi flourish to it.

What really delighted me was the astonishing way the land of Oz was realized. Having only recently seen the digitally remastered version of The Wizard of Oz, I was struck by its production value at a time when digital effects were not yet available, and I knew that if Raimi and his crew were going to live up to this legacy they would have to make full use of the current technology available. I'm happy to say that they have done just that. The CGI is uneven at some parts; I was not a fan of Finley, the digital flying monkey voiced by Braff, but I was utterly charmed by the China Girl. The landscapes, though, are topnotch, from the shimmering Emerald City to the small town full of Munchkins to the vast expanse of wilderness, this film showcases just how far Hollywood's visual wizardry has come in the last seventy-four years.

There was even a nicely nostalgic touch; the scenes that take place in Kansas are in black and white, with a much narrower aspect ratio, and with mono audio. All of this changes when Oscar Diggs' balloon crosses over into Oz, of course, with the screen dramatically widening and the color slowly bleeding into the picture as the awesome landscape is revealed. A soaring musical score by frequent Raimi collaborator Danny Elfman helps establish the mood, too, even though at time it sounds like he's recycling themes he's used in one Tim Burton movie or another.

Unfortunately, for me, neither the performances, nor the writing are as uniformly outstanding as most of the visuals.

I was happy with Franco's take on the wizard; he played out the character's redemptive arc pretty well. I've read criticism that it was a touch too serious, and that the role would have been better served by the originally-sought candidates Johnny Depp or Robert Downey, Jr. Now, quite frankly, I haven't been all that happy with Depp since Alice in Wonderland, in which he recycled many of the acting tics he's developed over the years, and I feel that, even with a director other than Tim Burton at the helm, we would quite likely have seen another familiar performance from him. I confess, though, that I would have loved to see Downey, Jr. take on this role, for so long as he wasn't an early 20th century Tony Stark. Franco's take on the character suits the way he was scripted, and perhaps therein lies the problem. Still, watching Oscar Diggs find his way to redemption was gratifying, though I will concede it wasn't always the most kid-friendly journey.

The three witches were the perhaps the most uneven of the bunch. It's hard to discuss their performances without spoiling what are clearly intended as plot twists, but suffice it to say that of the three, Mila Kunis's character easily has the most developed arc. Michelle Williams makes the best she can out of a relatively thinly-scripted role, and as for Rachel Weisz, well, to be completely fair to her, there really was not anything else she could have done for her character, so she gets full credit for her efforts. The problem was, first and foremost, with the scripting; apart from Franco's character it's not really clear why the others are motivated to do what they do, or more appropriately to not do what they clearly hope to do. It sounds complicated, I know, but suffice it to say that it was not clear to me why three women with magic powers could not solve their own problems but had to wait for a complete stranger to come along and do it for them. More diligent screenwriters could have come up with some kind of explanation for this. Credited screenwriters Mitchell Kapner and David Lindsay-Abaire didn't bother.

Also, it irked me that no one bothered to write an origin for the ruby red slippers that Judy Garland's Dorothy Gale wore in the 1939 film; I was really waiting for that one.

All told, this was, for me, a solidly entertaining film that could have been better, and given that the inevitable sequel is on the way after this movie's success at the box-office I can only hope that they improve on the writing next time around.

3/5