Josh Reviews Oz the Great and Powerful
I’m not someone with a deep love for The Wizard of Oz. To be frank, as a kid, I always found that 1939 film to be rather boring. I am sure that, at some point in my life, I have seen the whole film from start to finish, but I have no recollection of doing that. So I had no immediate connection to the world of The Wizard of Oz, nor to Frank Baum’s Oz books (I’ve never read any of ’em). I went to see Oz, the Great and Powerful purely becadoe of director Sam Raimi. He’s not perfect (cough Spider-Man 3 cough) but over-all I think he is a tremendously skilled, creative director, so I was intrigued to see his spin on the world of Oz.
To be honest, I wasn’t bowled over. Oz the Great and Powerful is a perfectly fine, entertaining movie. But it never rose to anything beyond the just OK to me. I never found it to be particularly funny, or exciting, or surprising. It’s perfectly well crafted, and there’s absolutely nothing about the film that is bad in any way. But there’s nothing great about it either, nothing surprising or unexpected. Other than the one beat of the revelation of the Wicked Witch, the story is very by-the-numbers. It unfolds pretty much exactly as you’d expect. Spoiler alert: the somewhat selfish, good-for-nothing failed magician we meet at the beginning eventually finds his heart and his courage and saves the day.
The film is beautiful to look at, and I was quite impressed by the design and execution of the magical world of Oz. Particularly once Oz’s balloon crashes in magical Oz, the next several minutes are quite a visual effects extravaganza, and I was extremely dazzled by the weird, brightly-colored vistas of Oz. I found it to be a far more successful realization of a magical wonderland than the garish, overstuffed version of Alice’s wonderland in Tim Burton’s Alice and Wonderland. I was also very impressed by the realization of Oz’s big fake head at the end of the film, and of the design and animation of the little teacup girl throughout the film. She’s a vey striking, effectively-realized creation. Though, good lord, the visual effects really fell down every time Oz was supposed to be holding or interacting with her. All of those shots looked extremely fake to me. In fact, there were plenty of dodgy CGI effects to pair with all the amazing sequences. Oz the Great and Powerful feels like a film whose reach somewhat exceeded its grasp in terms of all of the visual effects stuffed into the film. But I respect the film’s ambition, and really, the visual effects shots that don’t quite work aren’t that bad, and really didn’t bother me overmuch or take me out of the film.
In the film, Mr. Raimi reunited with his Spider-Man trilogy actor James Franco (where Mr. Franco played Harry Osborn, quite effectively) as the titular Oz. I enjoyed Mr. Franco in the role, though I can’t say I found his performance to be particularly revelatory. Sometimes his mugging was very amusing, other times just a little tiresome. Like the whole movie, Mr. Franco is perfectly fine, not bothersome but not exceptional either.
I wasn’t bowled over by the character animation on the flying monkey — again, to repeat my theme, it’s not at all bad, it’s perfectly fine and good, just nothing particularly jaw-dropping (this isn’t Gollum) — but I did quite enjoy Zach Braff (Scrubs)’s voice-work in the role. I don’t think this character provided quite as much comic relief as the filmmakers might have been hoping, but he had some good lines and he was an endearing, likable character.
I saw Oz the Great and Powerful in 3-D, and I was very pleased by the 3-D presentation, which I found to be very rich and dimensional. This was a pleasant surprise. I din’t find the film too dark to see (a common problem with under-lit 3-D presentations), and I was very pleased by how well the motion of characters, objects, etc., was realized in 30-D — no blurriness or headaches to be found, thank goodness. Probably my favorite part of Oz the Great and Powerful is the wonderful opening credits, which were not only gorgeously designed, but also filled with some really lovely 3-D effects. Very cool.
In fact, the whole opening black-and-white sequence was really great. I enjoyed seeing Oz the struggling magician, and the glimpses we got into the trickery and stage-craft he used to pull off his illusions was a lot of fun. The black-and-white scenes were gorgeously filmed, beautiful to look at, and I found the 3-D of these black-and-white sections of the film to be particularly effective.
I have written a lot on this site about my not being a big fan of prequels. There were a few fun moments in Oz the Great and Powerful, particularly towards the end, when it was neat to see the filmmakers set up the status quo as we see things once Dorothy enters Oz in The Wizard of Oz. I really loved seeing the big Oz head, in particular. That was a great moment, realized by a really beautiful special effect. And I enjoyed the allusions to all of Dorothy’s characters throughout the film, and the nice bit of a character getting burned by her tears, a fun connection to the wicked witch’s famous weakness to water from The Wizard of Oz. But for every cool prequel moment, there was one that puzzled me. I found the revelation about the Wicked Witch to be sad, though not in a way that was all that emotionally effecting or poignant (which is surely what the filmmakers were hoping for). It was more that I was left puzzled that, at least from what we see in this movie and in The Wizard of Oz, Oz didn’t make any attempt to set things right. It makes he look like a pretty cold bastard for sending Dorothy to kill her in The Wizard of Oz.
As you can see, I really don’t have any terribly strong feelings about Oz the Great and Powerful. It was perfectly entertaining, quite well-made. I have very little to object to. But there was nothing that sparked my passion, either. I had a fine time in the cinema, though I doubt this is a film that I will revisit soon.