Oz: The Great and Powerful Review

I've have the film Oz: The Great and Powerful in my sights ever since Robert Downey Jr was signed on to star in the film (which I'll probably talk about more later.) I remember being really excited for this film when it was supposed to be Sam Raimi (one of my favorite directors) with RDJ (one of my favorite actors.) Sadly, the movie stay in development hell for quite some time, so they lost RDJ. I still kept up with the production of the film, and though they replaced RDJ with a ridiculously inferior actor (his only good role was 127 Hours, other than Freaks & Geeks, of course,) I was still excited for the film. I kind of wish I hadn't gotten my hopes up...

This movie wasn't awful. That is probably the nicest thing I can say about it on the whole. Individually, there were some shining parts/moments in this film, but it just didn't come together that well. I think the absolute worst part of this film was James Franco. I really don't know who thought it was a good idea to have him star as The Wizard. I can name so many films that I hated him in, and I'm really having trouble thinking of movies I actually liked him in. There are movies I liked in spite of him (this one might be one of them...I still don't know if I really liked it, or if I just "didn't hate" it.) Every time Franco opened his mouth, he either ruined a good scene, or just made a bad scene worse. His interaction with every character just didn't feel right. And it wasn't the dialogue (at least, not all the time), it was the way he was playing the role. It almost felt like Franco wanted the audience to know that he was just dicking around in front of a green screen or something. He was absolutely horrendous.

I'll get all of my bad comments out of the way, then end on a high note. The script for this movie was both awful and great. On average, it was pretty good, but the bad parts were really bad. I think what bothered me most about the script were the forced references to the vastly superior The Wizard of Oz. As someone who is vaguely familiar with the Oz books (though I haven't read more than one), I was hoping they would keep this one more or less separate from it's predecessor. The Oz universe is so much larger than just Dorothy and Glinda. They included a fair amount of the extended universe, but not enough to make this feel like anything more than a "let's make tons of money off of the 30's movie" instead of a "let's bring more of L. Frank Baum's wonderous world to life." I think they severely erred on this point. Also, the movie dragged a fair amount. I felt that a lot of the film could have been condensed. It had no right being 130 minutes. Seriously, why not pull out 20-30 minutes of Franco looking like a goofy idiot and make this a well-paced, fun movie? Ugh.

Now for the good parts of the film. The acting (with the exclusion of Franco) was actually pretty great. I thought Michelle Williams and Zach Braff were the obvious winners in this aspect, but I thought Mila Kunis was really strong in this film. I think a lot of people are bashing her performance because they are so used to seeing her in comedies and just can't take her seriously as *SPOILER ALERT* an antagonistic character. To those people, I would suggest watching Black Swan again, because she was phenomenal in that film. But I'm getting off track. The acting was really strong in this movie (if you pretend like James Franco doesn't exist.)

The best thing about this movie is that is had one of the best directors in the game. Say what you will about Spiderman 3, but I still love Sam Raimi. Even if Spiderman 3 has a horrendous script that is cursed by having too many villains, I still think it has some great shots and gorgeous camera angles. But this isn't a defense of that movie. Raimi really showed off his skills with Oz. As always, he uses really weird and unique camera angles to make the audience just shit their pants. I loved the feel of the opening at the circus and the clear change when they get into Oz. Everyone is gonna notice the clear difference (OHHH PRETTY COLORS) but it really is completely different. The filming style changes completely and it feels like a different movie. I love everything Raimi did with this film, and without him, Oz: The Great and Powerful 2 will fail unless they put together an amazing script that has very little Franco.

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I think this movie succeeded in a lot of ways, and also horrendously failed in a few ways as well. As always, Raimi delivered some amazing visuals, and I think the movie is worth viewing just to see what he does with the amazing world of Oz. While the script and acting weren't perfect throughout the film, they were good enough to make me not want to kill myself. I would say this movie should be seen on the big screen, because the visuals are stunning, but don't pay too much. Try and get a matinee price or something.

Writing: 6/10

Directing: 8.5/10

Acting: 6.5/10

Pacing: 4/10

Rewatchability: 6/10

Score: 6.2/10