Oz the Great and Powerful

I think I have never seen a movie with such (over)saturated and vibrant colors. Well, that is apart from the first few minutes which are in black and white as some tribute to the “original” Wizard of Oz movie. Surprisingly enough it works quite well. The sceneries and landscapes are beautiful to watch in just the right fairy-tale style that you would expect from the land of Oz. The story is pretty much a prequel to the original Wizard of Oz story. Something which does not really intrude too much for most part of the movie but becomes painfully obvious in the last couple of scenes. As for the general story it is pretty much okay. It pleased the kids for sure and I would say that is the main goal of this movie. For adults well, as I said it is okay but not really much more. The lead character can be infuriating at times with his “dubious ethics” as the blurb words it. Unfortunately he never really manages to convey that likable rascal attitude that one would have hoped for. He somehow just stays a rather bland character with “dubious ethics”. I think this goes for most of the other main characters as well. Except for the dubious ethics of course which for the other characters are either plain good or totally and without a doubt bad ones. On the whole I would say that the movie was okay but never really reached any higher than that. For a kid it was probably somewhat better than okay. I did enjoy the movie although this was mostly for the unusual and vibrant colorization and the lovely scenery.

If it were just down to the last twenty minutes or so, this might have been quite good. Sadly, though, we must watch the first hundred to get there, and they are not so good. "Diggs" (James Franco) is a jobbing, pretty unpleasant, magician doing the provincial shows when he and his balloon get caught up in a storm and next thing, he is in an unknown land where pretty soon he befriends a winged ape, a porcelain doll and is on the path to great riches in the "Emerald City". Upon arrival, acclaiming himself this great wizard, he meets three sisters who are a darned sight better with their wands - and he is soon a pawn in their game for control over "Oz". Can he thwart their machinations and save the city from their scheme? There is a narrative here - it's about "Diggs" discovering his inner decency, but it all just takes an age to get anywhere. Franco is adequate, but no better, and there three witches - Rachel Weisz, Mila Kunis and the nice one we recall from the original film "Glinda" (Michelle Williams) are oddly sterile with their efforts. Too much greenscreen, perhaps? Nobody seems to be at the races here. The dialogue is bland and barring a few fun expressions and observations from his put-upon sidekick "Frank" (Zach Braff) it just doesn't ever seem to catch fire. It does look good, the monochrome to colour effects work quite well, but otherwise I was rather underwhelmed by most of this.