Review of Oz the great and powerful
Oz the great and powerful movie poster
It is indubitably a challenge to direct a prequel of a masterpiece of cinematography such as Victor Fleming’s The Wizard of Oz (1939) and, truth be told, Sam Raimi’s Oz the Great and Powerful is nothing more than an attempt.
Oz the Great and Powerful is set in 1905, 20 years before The Wizard of Oz events, and tells the story of the deceitful illusionist Oscar Zoroaster Phadrig Isaac Norman Henkle Emmannuel Ambroise Diggs (James Franco) who is brought to the Land of Oz by a tornado. In this land he’ll have to fulfil the prophecy that says he’ll save and rule the land of Glinda, the Good Witch of the North (Michelle Williams), from Theodora, the Wicked Witch of the West (Mila Kunis), and, in the meantime, he’ll also redeem himself.
One of the advantages of directing a prequel, even more so the prequel of such a popular film, is that the audience already knows how the movie ends so it’s a chance for the director and the writers to really show off their skills and concentrate more on how to tell the story than on the plot itself. Director Sam Raimi (Spider-Man, 2002) and writers David Lindsay-Abaire and Mitchell Kapner fail to take this chance and instead drift from the main plot with empty stories-inside-the-story that add to the movie nothing more than useless screen time.
Those subplots, such as suggesting that Oz’s ex-girlfriend is Dorothy’s mother, a for-its-own-sake cameo by the Cowardly Lion or meaningless digressions on the Land of Oz’s flora and fauna (which are not in the L. Frank Baum’s original novels) can be considered attempts to link Oz the Great and Powerful with its older brother The Wizard of Oz but too few are the nods to the Fleming’s movie and too little is the continuity to call Oz a true prequel.
Furthermore some fundamental questions, if not proper contradictions, are left untouched: how come all the winged monkeys are evil and subjects of the Wicked Witch of the West, but Oz’s helper Finley is free and good? Why the Wicked Witch of the West, whose weakness is water, burns herself with her own tears but nothing happens when she touches Oz’s soaking wet clothes? Why is it called the Land of Oz before Oz conquers it? No answers are given.
When it comes to the acting, James Franco’s rendition of the wizard is the highlight of the movie partly because the character of Oz is Franco himself: a charming womanizer with dubious ethics able to convince his audience that what he’s doing is art/magic (see the critically acclaimed waste of time that is Spring Breakers, 2013). Not surprisingly, in fact, Franco is most convincing playing the deceiving side of Oz, while the redemption of the character doesn’t persuade the audience and the viewer is left with a sense of suspicion.
Michelle Williams and Mila Kunis both deliver flat and somewhat cartoony performances which is a shame for actresses that proved to be extremely talented in their previous filmography (see My Week With Marilyn, 2011 for Williams and Black Swan, 2010 for Kunis).
Honourable mention for Zach Braff who plays Oz’s assistant both in Kansas and in the Land of Oz dubbing Finley, the flying monkey. He delivers the most convincing performance among the whole cast despite having less than 15 minutes of screen time.
Something 100% positive about this movie is the masterful artistic direction of Robert Stromberg (Alice in Wonderland, 2010 and Avatar, 2009) who used CGI only to compliment his physical set designs. Doing so he made the background in the movie pleasantly watchable both for regular and 3D users and greatly improved the comfort of the actors who didn’t have to rely only on green screen but had a tangible set to interact with.
Overall, the feeling one is left with after watching the movie is that both the production team and the cast found themselves on the set slightly under prepared for what was about to happen and awkwardly tried to make the best of what they had.
Unfortunately their best is not even remotely worthy of being associated with a 1939 masterpiece.
Emilia Graziani 