If ever oh ever a wiz there was, the Wizard of Oz is one because….because of the wonderful things he does. Well, I doubt Dorothy had Oscar Diggs (James Franco) in mind when she was singing the song. By building the prequel around a character who is wholly different from Dorothy, Oz The Great and Powerful is allowed to stand on its own, while setting up the pieces that will come to fruition in the childhood classic. It is also a fun, slightly dark adventure tale that doesn’t do disservice to its source material, both movie and film.
Oscar Diggs is a two-bit con man magician who uses cheap tricks to seduce women instead of wowing the audience. Any chance he has to become great, he runs away from it. One such run leads him into a hot air balloon which transplants him to the magical world known as Oz. There he meets Theodora (Mila Kunis) who tells him that he is the prophesied wizard whose arrival was foretold by the previous queen. From there the pair travel to Emerald City, where Theodora’s sister Evanora (Rachel Weisz) tells him that he must kill the Wicked Witch to assume the throne. Accompanied by a monkey named Finley (Zach Braff) and a China Girl (Joey King), Oz finds that the Wicked Witch is actually Glinda the Good Witch (Michelle Williams), meaning the actual Wicked Witch is one of the two sisters now controlling Emerald City.
Oz’s plot is pretty standard stuff: con man grows a heart of gold (although the climax is pretty clever). Plot is not #1 on Director Sam Raimi’s priority list. His job in that department is to put the pieces of the Wizard of Oz in place before another tornado brings another Kansas visitor to Oz, in which he succeeds. That doesn’t mean that Raimi cannot remind us of how wonderous Oz can be. The non-Oz scenes appear in black and white so when we arrive in Oz (in 2D) the colors pop with vivid reds, greens, and yellows. Little parts of the Wizard of Oz appear (scarecrows, lions, sleepy poppy fields, The Wicked Witch’s fatal flaw, Dorothy’s parents(?), flying monkeys, bubbles, and munchkins) and generate lots of chatter throughout the audience. Raimi’s biggest addition to the land of Oz though is its cinematographic majesty. The visual effects and cinematography departments deserve a (cowardly?) lion’s share of credit for growing Oz’s scope to Lord of the Rings epic proportions.
The character development in Oz the Great and Powerful isn’t groundbreaking, but is more complicated than I thought going in. Raimi has used James Franco in the past, and Franco’s past few years of developing persona’s for himself make him an inspired choice to play the young Wizard of Oz. Franco is very good at walking the line between sleazy and magnetic, making Oz a very odd hero since a great deal of time you’re kind of repulsed by his intentions. Zach Braff gets lost in the CGI shuffle as Finley, but little Joey King gets the best emotional beats as the China Girl. Which brings us to the 3 witches. Michelle Williams makes Glinda (who, let’s face it, is kinda boring) a radiant plucky heroine that while not quite dimensional, at least has a personality. The two sisters are the big weakness of the story. Mila Kunis is surprisingly restrained in a role designed to be very over the top and malevolent, and Rachel Weisz is almost forgotten by the time the credits role because she functions mostly as a plot device.
Oz The Great and Powerful is at least decent and nostalgic. While not leaving a strong emotional connection, at least we are treated to a fun prequel to a more transcendent one. I wonder what class James Franco attended to learn how to be a wizard? At least he has Michelle Williams there to make bubbles.