Movies: Oz the Great and Powerful

Score:  ***1/2 out of ***** (B)

Long Story Short:  Director Sam Raimi takes on the famous wizard in Oz the Great and Powerful, the first expected blockbuster of the year.  Despite having the structure of a standard family film, Oz manages to entertain both young and old with an engaged cast and clever ideas throughout.  And even with a limited range of outcomes, Oz manages some surprises (particularly Franco's "hero").


I promise you, I will improve my current average of seeing a movie per month!  That task is looking to become easier as the studios begin to release more films that interest me.  The first, and perhaps biggest, film in what has become the new "spring blockbuster season" is Oz the Great and Powerful.  It has been many years since I've seen The Wizard of Oz, so long that I barely remember it - but the trailer and commercials for this just piqued my interest for some reason.  Well, with a talented director, interesting cast, and decent score on Rotten Tomatoes (~60% at time of release), I decided to give it a try, just hoping for an entertaining time at the theater.  Oz the Great and Powerful was directed by Sam Raimi (Spider-Man films) and stars James Franco, Michelle Williams, Mila Kunis and Rachel Weisz.

The film begins in Kansas in 1905 (thanks, Wikipedia), the picture framed in a black-and-white square. Oscar Diggs (Franco) is a magician with a traveling circus, whose most effective tricks seem to be wooing his young female assistants and bossing his male assistant around.  After a tough performance, Oscar gets even worse news: a rather large man is angry at him for flirting with his girlfriend.  Oscar flees in a hot air balloon, but gets swept up in a tornado and finds himself flung into Oz (along with normal aspect ratio and full color).  He finds fantastic, unearthly life forms in addition to a young witch, Theodora (Kunis).  Upon meeting Oscar, the witch is excited that he is the prophesied Wizard of Oz, come to save the realm from the Wicked Witch.

Along the way to the Emerald City, Oz works his charm on Theodora and picks up a flying monkey companion named Finley (Braff).  All are merry at the news in the City, but Theodora's sister, Evanora (Weisz), informs him that he must first defeat the Wicked Witch before he can become King of Oz (and enjoy the massive room full of gold left for him).  Oz sets off on the task with Finley, but as you might imagine, not all turns out as planned in the effort to rid the realm of its evil-doer.

A rather eclectic cast was assembled for Oz, and for the most part it works quite well.  James Franco is the lead as Oz, of course.  I am not really a fan of Franco, but that works out here:  I think he seems arrogant, falsely charming, and conniving - and that's basically what Oz is.  Of course, Franco/Oz aren't all bad, but it's pretty intriguing to have a non-traditional hero in this fairly traditional story.  Glinda the Good Witch is played by Michelle Williams, who looks absolutely stunning but is certainly no damsel in distress.  Williams pulls off a combination of great gentleness of character without coming off as naive, and her mental and emotional resolve is a great example for young viewers.  Rachel Weisz is also great as the witch Evanora, a calculating, cool-headed power broker in the Emerald City.  

Unfortunately, not only is Mila Kunis miscast as Theodora the witch, her part is also the worst-written aspect of the film.  Her character just sticks out like a sore thumb from the time she appears, and Kunis makes it worse by overacting.  Oz also has two nonhuman companions:  the already-mentioned Finley, as well as China Girl.  Finley, as voiced by Scrubs' Zach Braff, is a fun character who is great for young audiences and perfectly tolerable for adults, too.  China Girl, voiced by Joey King, is also good, displaying a great attitude early on; unfortunately, both characters are mostly forgotten in the last third or so of the film.

The narrative structure in Oz the Great and Powerful is standard, what you'd expect from a family-based film, but it has enough interesting aspects within that structure to keep adults' attention, too.  Oz could easily have been made as a film to show off "look how cool the land of Oz looks, updated from the 1939 classic!" - but fortunately, Raimi keeps this to a minimum and instead focuses on the characters throughout.  Perhaps most impressively, Oz manages to keep its self distinct from the classic film.  For example, each may have similar openings with the main characters swept away by tornado, but it doesn't come off as contrived.  The ending, which has certain results that are expected, achieves its ends cleverly.  There is also, fortunately, none of the cynical or self-aware humor of some recent family films, and Franco is actually pretty funny.  As a last note, the soundtrack didn't really stand out to me at all.

***

Ultimately, the fun, creative, even memorable moments in Oz the Great and Powerful outweigh its flaws to result in a good family film.  First, I'll elaborate more on the downside:  the script is not all that good.  The worst part, as I mentioned, is pretty much everything to do with Theodora; in addition, the film has a pretty substantial running length for a family film (2 hrs, 7 minutes) and so it drags at times (this is also the fault of the editors, of course).  I realize that this is a family fantasy film, but some of the plot devices also come off as a little too convenient.  On the other hand, there is a lot to like here, too.  The entire cast seemed to enjoy it (no "phoned-in" performances), Franco is very well-cast as Oz, and Williams and Weisz are great as polar opposite witches.  The focus on character even comes down to the climax:  instead of using yet another effects-heavy battle of armies, the good guys are forced to outwit rather than outmuscle their foes.  Perhaps Wizard of Oz fanatics will find more to complain about than I did, but if you are just looking for a fun time that offers more clever twists than the usual family film, check it out.