Oz the Great and Powerful - A review (sort of)

Extended blog post title: Oz the Great and Powerful - A review by someone who knows nothing about films but watches a lot of them!

'The land you know. The story you don't.'

Genre: Fantasy, Adventure, Family
Director: Sam Raimi
Producer: Joe Roth
Written by: David Lindsay-Abaire and Mitchell Kapner
Released: March 2013






Yay for Disney! This movie is a little old now but I've only just recently been made aware of its existence. This is surprising since I am a huge Wizard of Oz fan and I am rather partial to the lovely James Franco. These are also two reasons why I was a little bit sceptical of watching this film. The Wizard of Oz is such a classic; I watched it over and over when I was a youngster. I used to take it as far as dressing up as Glinda the good witch as much as possible. Me, rooting for the good guy? How things have changed! Imagine me in this costume though...

Oz the Great and Powerful gives the (wonderful) Wizard of Oz a back story and enlightens us to how he came to be in the merry old land of Oz. I must admit to being a little too excited when I heard the hauntingly familiar sounds of a Danny Elfman score as the film started. I enjoy all things Tim Burton so I am a great fan of his work. I also loved the nod to the original film in that this one also started in black and white then reverted to colour when entering Oz. Visually, this film is absolutely stunning. I can't fault the spectacular scenery and magical lands we are subjected to here. The china town was a particular favourite of mine. Although we are introduced to it as a wasteland after being destroyed by the witch's minions, I thought it was breathtaking. 

The general story was okay; I think kids will appreciate it. Oscar (Oz) is a fake magician and has to escape from the circus in a hot air balloon due to some bad behaviour with the ladies (oh, you). He finds himself transported to the magical land of Oz, where its inhabitants are eagerly awaiting the arrival of an all powerful magician who can become king and rule over their land. Oz greedily accepts all the riches and perks that come with his new title, but soon meets the three witches and must eventually decide who is good and who is evil before it is too late. There's lots of drama, visual effects, good vs evil and even some light comedy relief provided by the wonderful Zach Braff. The highlight of the film for me was getting to see how Oz created his huge head illusion and see it put to a greater effect here when he is attempting to fight off the evil witches.

I have to be frankly honest (excuse my pun) and admit that I thought Franco was disappointing. Sorry, James. I probably couldn't admire him any more but I just didn't think he was right for this role. He played the cheeky chappy womanizer extremely well at the beginning (of course) but fell a little short when it came to the more serious scenes. Apparently Robert Downey Jr was originally intended to play the wizard and I can't help but think he would have done a better job. Luckily, Franco's smile was gorgeous enough to distract me from his performance. 

The three witches were played well, nothing too special in my opinion. Michelle Williams as Glinda was mesmerising to look at, as ever. Not a bad choice for one of my childhood heroes. I thought Mila Kunis was predictably good as Theodora and I particularly loved her transformation into the green, hooked nose wicked witch of the West that we know from the original. I was completely distracted by her HUGE hat for the whole first half of the movie though. Rachel Weisz (Evanora) would have been fantastic if her forehead had moved even just an inch throughout the film. Seriously, even the CGI china doll had a greater range of facial expressions.

Told you it was big.

Overall, I didn't find this 'prequel' too bad. An interesting film for the whole family to enjoy and a nice tribute to the classic film.