Tell me a story

If the first Wizard of Oz film was all just Dorothy’s dream, how do you then have a prequel that explains the wizard’s arrival to Oz? Was it not a dream? Is the prequel just another one of Dorothy’s dreams, maybe on the very next night, her subconscious feeling a need to color in the details of the people in her previous dream? Is this an inception? These are the most interesting questions regarding Oz the Great and Powerful, and they are not addressed at all. I get that we’re supposed to think that Dorothy really did go to Oz, but that celebrated film allows you to read it either way. Oz the Great and Powerful doesn’t give you that option. It refuses to even toy around with the idea. I really think they missed a chance to do something clever with the whole is-it-a-dream/is-it-not-a-dream aspect. But oh well.

I was never a fan of The Wizard of Oz. I didn’t like Judy Garland’s overacting, I didn’t care about Dorothy at all, and Oz was kind of an ugly place to me. All I really liked was the band of merry freaks she gathered for her journey down the yellow brick road. So why did I even want to revisit the world of Oz? Why indeed. I suppose I was just curious what Sam Raimi would do with the mythology. Beyond the first two Spider-man movies, I’m not really a fan of Raimi’s work, but he definitely has a lot of talent. I wanted to see what he and James Franco, who I generally like, would create.

James Franco as Oz

The story is about Oscar Diggs (played by James Franco), or Oz as his friends know him. He’s a magician with a traveling carnival, and though his act doesn’t bring in a lot of people, his tricks tend to work on the women he meets. When a jealous boyfriend chases him into a hot air balloon, he takes off from the carnival and heads right toward the twister. His balloon is torn to shreds and his body is hurtled down to the ground where he’s killed instantly on impact. I’m not kidding. That really happens. They don’t show the actual smashed body, but you hear the smashing sound. Okay, I am kidding. Oz lands in Oz, where he quickly meets a witch named Theodora (played my Mila Kunis) who asks him if he’s the Oz who it has been prophesized will defeat the wicked witch and her flying monkeys and rule over all the land. “Yeah, why not,” is more or less his answer.

As a whole, the movie is fairly predictable. You’ll see every move coming. What’s worse is that you probably won’t even buy the characters. I only saw Franco and Kunis on the screen as opposed to Oz and Theodora. Their acting just wasn’t very good. Franco in particular looked oily and shady and gave an almost creepy vibe. He was very smiley, and somehow that made him even creepier. However, what I did like about his character was that he was very aware of his self-centeredness. Early in the film we see that hat he had a chance for a good honest relationship in Kansas, but he rejected it because even though he knew he could have been a better man, he didn’t want to be, not yet. I think that was probably meant to be a character flaw, but I thought that self-awareness was actually a strength of his. Of course by the end he realizes he needs to grow up, but it was a fun just to see him being self-centered and greedy.

As for his band of merry freaks? Well there is Finley, a flying monkey (a non-evil one, voiced by Zach Braff), a tiny girl made of porcelain (voiced by Joey King), and a witch, although you could say she’s the one leading him on his journey. He also ends up meeting a couple of other witches, some munchkins, some scientists and some oddly-dressed townspeople. Some of the people he encounters fully believe he is their savior while others know he’s a fraud. In the end, the battle between his morals and his need for self-preservation is just as important as his battle with the wicked witch.

A lot of what I didn’t like in this movie was the look of it. The CGI was incredibly distracting. I felt like I could almost see the green screen in every scene. Oz itself just looked ugly and fake to me. The townspeople wore ugly clothes and came across as dull uninteresting sheep. Finley was kind of an ugly cute, like a pug, and I’m not sure that was the creators’ goal. The Wicked Witch didn’t look scary. I mean compare her to the original Wicked Witch. Which one do you think is more dangerous?

The townspeople of Oz

Finley the Monkey. Cute or Ugly?

Original Wicked Witch

Wicked Witch Redux

I probably would have wanted to see this even less if I had known it was Rated PG, but I only found out about an hour before we were headed to theater. I could have bailed on it, but I was still curious. I think kids will probably like this movie. It has a lot of bright colors and comical characters and a story that they can probably follow easily. I don’t know if fans of the original will like this one, but it’s made about $147 million in about two weeks, which isn’t bad. I think a lot of that is just the curiosity factor. I highly doubt this will get repeat business. So I say if you’re a fan of the original, if you’re curious, then give it a shot. Otherwise, go see Stoker.

My Rating

Oz the Great and Powerful
Director: Sam Raimi (The Evil Dead, Army of Darkness, Spider-Man 1-3, Drag Me to Hell)
Writers: Mitchell Kapner (The Whole Nine Yards, Romeo Must Die, The Whole Ten Yards), David Lindsay-Abaire (Robots, Rise of the Guardians)