This Yellow
Brick Road Loses Its Way
By Skip Sheffield
The original 1939 MGM musical film version of “The Wizard of
Oz” was a perfect storm of creativity and inspiration. Filmmakers have been
trying to top this most-watched film ever since, to no avail.
“Oz the Great and Powerful” is the latest attempt. To put it
kindly, it falls short.
This is a non-musical prequel to the MGM classic, produced
by the Disney conglomerate. Okay, it has incidental music by the ubiquitous
Danny Elfman.
James Franco stars as the title character Oscar Diggs, a
third-rate magician and serial heartbreaker also known as Oz. Like the 1939
film it starts out in Kansas
in black-and-white. Also like the original some actors play dual roles in Kansas and the colorful,
magical Land of Oz.
Screenwriters Mitchell Kapner and David Lindsay-Abaire make
a lot of references to the 1939 film, but there are some things they could not
use, such as the famous ruby slippers and the specific design of the Emerald City
What “Oz the Great and Powerful” lacks in originality it
makes up in special effects, including 3-D, computer-generated imagery, IMAX in
limited release and a thundering soundtrack. Director Sam Raimi (“Spider-Man
3”) also pours on the blood and gory effects. The Wicked Witch’s flying monkeys
look like they could have flown in from Raimi’s earlier horror flick, “Evil
Dead.”
A basic problem with this re-imagining is that the character
of the Wizard of Oz is one of its least interesting. Sure he’s a cad, a fraud
and a con man, but so what? We see a lot of them in real life.
Franco, who was the third choice to play Oz, does his level
best to make his character relatable, but Oscar Diggs just is not very
magnetic.
Far more interesting are the three witches, which are the
best thing about the movie.
Mila Kunis makes the most arresting transformation; from the
alluring, beautiful Theodora to the green-skinned, pointy-nosed cackling hag we
remember tormenting Judy Garland.
Rachel Weisz also gets her bad girl on as Theodora’s even
more evil sister, Evanora. Weisz clearly enjoys playing her unredeemable
villain, and it is fun, if fleeting, for us.
Over on the goody-goody side, we have Michelle Williams,
playing the virginal Annie in Kansas
and “Glinda the Good” in Oz. Williams has never looked lovelier, but that is
her one dimension.
James Franco gets a computer-generated sidekick; a flying
monkey called Finley, who was a human called Frank back in Kansas . Zach Braff voices both characters
most sympathetically.
A real head-scratcher is the character of China Girl, a tiny
porcelain doll voiced by Joey King. I suppose the character is designed to
show Oz’s compassionate side, but she is of little use otherwise.
“Oz the Great and Powerful” has a rather open ending which
hints of a sequel, but I don’t think so. If you want a really involving
prequel and tribute to both the 1939 movie and writer L. Frank Baum’s original 1900
tale, go see the stage musical “Wicked” when it comes to town again, or better
yet, catch it at New York’s Gershwin Theatre.
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