Oz the Great and Powerful

In spite of all the reboots and remakes we’ve seen the last decade or so, I thought there were a handful of movies that were reboot-proof, movies that are so iconic and thoroughly ingrained in pop culture that people of all ages know them and no filmmaker would even attempt to do them again. I guess I was wrong: I would have named The Wizard of Oz as one of those films, but apparently even one of the most beloved classics in movie history isn’t immune to this trend.

Technically, Oz the Great and Powerful isn’t a reboot or remake; it’s a direct prequel to Victor Fleming’s 1939 film (as opposed to a more accurate adaptation of L. Frank Baum’s many novels). But the focus on making it bigger and better than the original is much the same. Well, it’s bigger maybe, but better (or even close to equal to) The Wizard of Oz is out of the question. Still, director Sam Raimi has made a picture that, in spite of a lot of things (reboot fatigue among them), is pretty…good.

The film, which gives the Wizard his Batman Begins moment, begins in black and white (one of many references to Fleming’s masterpiece strewn throughout) in Kansas in the early 20^th century. Here, the not-so-wonderful Oscar Diggs (James Franco), a carnival magician who spends more time conning people and wooing young farm girls, narrowly escapes an angry mob in a hot air balloon, only to be sucked up by a twister just like Dorothy (who doesn’t appear). Diggs is transported to the brightly colored fantastical Land of Oz, where he’s hailed as a wizard prophesized to rid the land of the evil witches who have taken over. Loving his new status, the selfish, arrogant, and decidedly un-magical con man accepts this role and sets off on the Yellow Brick Road to save Oz, not realizing what he’s getting himself into. Along the way, he meets some familiar faces, such as the Munchkins and Glinda the Good Witch (Michelle Williams), as well as a few new characters (and like Dorothy’s companions, they, too, eerily resemble people he knows from Kansas).

Despite having little in the way of special effects in 1939 (just being in color was a big achievement at the time), The Wizard of Oz created a sprawling fantasy world full of lush colors and magical characters, and is still a beautiful-looking film more than 70 years later. Things are different now, so the filmmakers seemed to have used everything at their disposal to give Great and Powerful a brighter, more magical Oz. This means the magnificent sets are replaced by special effects sequences that simply could not have been done in the era before CGI. It also means that some of the costumed characters are replaced by computer animation. Knowing that they’re made by computers, the effects aren’t quite as impressive as what was done by hand seven decades ago, but they still are quite cool to behold. The film was obviously made to be seen in 3D, as countless shots jump out at the camera, but it still looks great without it (the film begs to be seen on some sort of big screen, however).

Where the film kind of falters is with its human components. Franco is an enjoyable lead, not too likeable at first but smarmy and witty enough to keep the viewer interested. Williams is adequate as Glinda (though she was kind of a one note character in The Wizard of Oz, so Williams is arguably an improvement). Mila Kunis’ Wicked Witch of the West, however, seem more like just a jealous girlfriend stereotype, which doesn’t make for a very good villain (I did get an unintentional laugh, however, as the witch form she takes later in the movie vaguely resembles the post-makeover Gruntilda from the game over cutscene in Banjo-Kazooie). Rachel Weisz, as Kunis’ conniving sister, doesn’t seem very evil, or really to have any emotion at all; she’s just kind of there to fill in some plot points.

Ironically, the characters that are the liveliest are the ones that only exist as pixels, by which I mean CGI. The good flying monkey Finley (voiced by Zach Braff) plays off Franco very well and adds some comic relief, while China Girl (voiced by Joey King), the last surviving member of a race of living china dolls, surprisingly provides the emotional center to the narrative. The most effective antagonists are the evil flying monkeys, depicted as rabid winged baboons much more ferocious than their 1930s counterparts. I’m not sure if all this says something about how far computerized characters have come in movies, or if it just says very little for the live actors involved. But it works.

This film will never match the appeal, longevity, or sheer level of fun of its predecessor (and really, without the classic songs, it feels like something's missing), but it’s a good movie for family audiences, while older fans can have fun catching all the references to and origins of several elements we remember from The Wizard of Oz (even though honestly, I wasn’t exactly thinking about how a lot of the things revealed came to be). It’s certainly a more fun prequel than Wicked.