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March 8, 2013
Review: Oz the Great and Powerful
— Posted by Ryan
Synopsis: A small-time magician arrives in an enchanted land and is forced to decide if he will be a good man or a great one.
The film started off as you would suspect, just like The Wizard of Oz moving from black and white to color. I did enjoy the transition of black and white to color but the transition of a 4:3 aspect ratio to widescreen was a little too much and honestly distracting in my opinion. Once the transition to color occurred, the visuals were quite stunning, they were very colorful and vibrant like you would expect from an Oz film. The trailer depicts these colors well but it does not show the often change in background from full to flat. I believe it looks flat at times due to the many attempts of drawing from The Wizard of Oz. In the classic film, the flat backdrop is easily noticed and is also apparent in Oz the Great and Powerful. I found it to be confusing rather than pleasant. Why create this expansive world for the audience to immerse themselves in, release it in 3D, and then throw in flat backdrops that make no sense in a 3D world? From a cinematography aspect, I found this film to be very scattered with moments of enjoyable eye candy (Mila Kunis included on that) and moments of still, picturesque backgrounds that just didn’t seem to flow together.
 The world of Oz isn’t the only eye candy… The camera shots were not the only things that were scattered in this film. The acting moved back and forth from moments of sincerity to almost laughable moments of overacting. I attribute much of this to the dialogue because it is difficult to not go over the top with some of the lines in the film. Franco’s character has to be over the top at times due to him playing the role of a magician, but there were some moments where it just wasn’t applicable. When playing a witch, it is near impossible to not play the role a little over the top. I don’t see how any actress could pull off a witch’s laugh and be taken seriously. As for the rest of the characters, they had those over the top moments as well, but none were as apparent as the wizard and the witch. I think the problem again lies in the film’s tight cling to the original film. The Wizard of Oz followed a more theater driven approach in its setting, acting, dialogue, and even plot at times. While I love The Wizard of Oz for this, it’s because it maintains consistency with that approach. Oz the Great and Powerful, while thoroughly entertaining at times, does not maintain consistency and tends to mix aspects of theater with aspects of film and the two don’t always mesh well together.
 Vibrant visuals scattered with sometimes flat backgrounds The plot shared moments from The Wizard of Oz (as it had to) but I felt this element was the most unique element of the film. The story of the wizard, the witches, Glenda the good, and all the other expanded stories of the characters we know is what consistently intrigued me. The similarities to the original film did not bother me as much from the story aspect because the similarities are what identified this film as an expansion of the Oz world and story. There were moments that I wanted further expansion on but without going into spoilers, I cannot discuss those moments. Overall the plot had some familiar characters with unfamiliar stories that could have been expanded on but were entertaining nonetheless.
When reviewing this film, I thought it would be unfair to compare it to The Wizard of Oz, but with so many moments of apparent similarities, it makes it difficult to move away from the comparison. I think this film had some very enjoyable moments but it takes a bit of endurance to wait through the drab moments in order to get to the enjoyable ones. I had to think about this film for a bit to determine what I thought of it and I think the lack of consistency in certain elements is what made me not entirely enjoy this film.
This post was written by :
Ryan who has written 181 posts on The Movie Blog First and foremost, Ryan Brown is a fan. He has been an avid fan of both the theater and cinema since an early age and his passion for both has been continually growing ever since. When dissecting a film, he focuses on all elements of film-making including some fan/cult factors. He believes that character development is the foundation of a good film and usually starts his analysis of a film from there moving forward. His writing style may be influenced by his background of narrative and argumentative studies in the subject, but he tends to enjoy a more conversational style to better interact with the readers, unlike some other pretentious and pompous writers.  Around the Web
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Man, I gotta say this movie really left me with mixed feelings. The budget for this film was huge and I expected the grandiose visuals we got. Much like you're saying Ryan the camera work felt scattered but thinking back on it, I think Raimi worked to match/mirror the camera work done in the original The Wizard of Oz (1939). Which for me the introduction of black and white made sense. I figured that would be the only *nod* but instead it was just strange to see visually flat cinematography at times. Given the landscape of Oz.
I'm also still a little thrown by assuming the whole movie was a dream and Oscar actually died. Because the film for me works to make The Wizard of Oz (1939) cannon and this movie as the prequel. And there Dorothy at the end was dreaming. In the books, it's heavily alluded that Oz was in fact a real place and that's where this movie supposedly takes its stance from. So further it was odd even more so why so much was done to play up the 1939 film. Especially given Disney has already greenlit a sequel or multiple sequels, with possible intent to remake The Wizard of Oz itself. I mean we got glimpses of the Cowardly Lion, the Scarecrow, etc, a lot of tiny anecdotes to the 1939 film.
So watching Oz The Great and Powerful overall, it just felt more was done to make it feel like it was all a dream movie, rather than make Oz a real place. The acting was definitely hit and miss. I think Kunis had more fun as the Wicked Witch, Franco was never really convincing as a Wizard. By that I mean I never bought his act, he didn't fool me and I felt he should have. He was always just a con-man to me. But I did thoroughly enjoy the final act of his greatest trick ever. That really was fun.
Realistically I feel like I'm in the camp where I didn't like the movie. Too much was askew for me. Finley and China Girl stole it character was for me. Weisz was very consistent, Williams was up/down for me like Kunis and Franco was. And Tony Cox as Knuck, I kept seeing him in his role in Epic Movie every single time the camera panned down to him. It was like the exact same character all over again. Can I actually say that was bad casting?
The film definitely did what it was supposed to, like @JamesM said in his comment. Last thing I want to touch on, I enjoyed the opening credits.
I saw this movie and I loved it. It wasn't perfect and all throughout the film I kept getting the impression that James Franco's Oz was written with Robert Downey Jr. in mind. A lot of the dialog within the film Oz seemed like it could have been enhanced or could have been delivered better. I didn't like the inconsistency with the acting either, with some scenes delivered in a very campy and over the top way while others were more serious and subdued It's like the movie didn't have a consistent identity and would switch between a unrealistic film with a serious tone to something a lot more juvenile. The delivery and performances echoed this inconsistency as well with only Rachel Weisz providing the only "constant" that wasn't CGI.
Aside from those complaints the movie struck all the right chords and connected with the Wizard of Oz film in a great way, and left the door open to continue to explore the life of Oz the Great and Powerful. I loved that Raimi made sure the camera shots and scenes were constantly moving, which is a treat for those folks watching in 3D giving the effect of watching something "on rails". I also liked the musical score, but it sounded like unused production from his Spider-Man trilogy.
Overall the film is a lot of fun and definitely worth checking out!
I thoroughly enjoyed this film. Well done in my opinion. Distancing itself from Wizard of Oz wasn't the point of this film - quite the opposite I think. Lots of Jaded critics out there, but the film did was it was supposed to I think.