Oz the Great and Powerful - Movie Review

Oz the Great and Powerful is Sam Raimi’s homage to the classic Wizard of Oz, with half of a well-developed script and lovely images of Oz, the fanciful land created by L. Frank Baum. Let me say up front that I am a huge Oz fan–I own over thirty books by Baum, including three editions of The Wizard of Oz plus a multitude of Ozania. I’m the demographic for this one.

Raimi is clearly a fan of the Judy Garland musical, and echoes the format, starting his movie in black and white (Kansas) and switching to color when they arrive in Oz. It’s an old trick, but an effective one, and it works particularly well here where the destination is in riotous color. There’s a nice tie-in to the Gale family (parents to Dorothy?), a familiar voyage to Oz, the treacherous poppy field, singing munchkins, and a flying monkey.

Little details are well handled: the hot air balloon sweeping epically through the air leaves doubt whether it will land safely, and the flying minions of evil are truly scary. Kansas is particularly flat, dull, and lifeless, and Oz gets lots of bigger-than-you-could-possibly-imagine colors. Working with these sets are terrific costumes–the cosplayer in me would love to recreate a number of the ensembles put together for the witches.

The largest single performance in the movie is James Franco as Oscar Zoroaster Phadrig Isaac Norman Henkel Emmannuel Ambroise Diggs aka Oz. He is in nearly every scene. While not spectacular, he’s a good deal better than his turn as host at the Academy Awards, and he shows a lot of range–the script gives him a lot to work with. If he failed, then the movie would have failed. Franco gives us Oz the stage magician, Oz the sincere lover, Oz the Don Juan, and Oz afraid of being a failure (“I’m not the man you want me to be.”).

Where the movie could have been a shining beacon, and instead failed miserably, was in the case of the three witches: Theodora (Mila Kunis), Evanora (Rachel Weisz), and Glinda (Michelle Williams). All three were written practically interchangeably–there was nothing to truly distinguish the characters without a scorecard. It’s a good thing that one is blond and they painted another green–that made it possible to tell them apart–something the script was an epic failure at. They didn’t seem to do a whole lot of magic, either–just what made them witches, again? Their complete lack of social skills?

It just wouldn’t be Oz without interesting non-human creatures (the Scarecrow and the Tin Man haven’t arrived yet). The characters put together were well-chosen, with Zach Braff voicing Finlay, the comic relief, and Joey King lending her talents to the heart of the movie, as the China Girl. Watch, too, for the expected cameo by genre favorite Bruce Campbell.

The worst obstacle they needed to overcome was prequelitis–like the first three Star Wars movies, everyone knows how this one is going to end (the whole Dark Vader thing). They did succeed to a point, keeping you guessing on a lot of little things, and throwing little twists in the plot until the very end. At least it wasn’t boring, and there was always something interesting to look at. This is an entertaining and fun movie, as long as you don’t look too hard at the script . . . .

Review by Elektra Hammond

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