Oz: The Great and Powerful

Happy Halloween everyone! Let’s end today with the 2013 prequel to one of my favorite movies of all time, “Oz: The Great and Powerful.” There is quite a bit of magic in this movie, although most of it is borrowed.

One could resist that’s what prequels are: They must link themselves undistinguishably to what we knew.

Writers Mitchell Kapner and David Lindsay-Abaire based their script on the works of the great L. Frank Baum. However, this movie, which was also released in 3D, is based on the classic 1939 movie with Judy Garland. The movie even opens up with a black-and-white Kansas, with a twister.

Obviously Dorothy will not be in this movie, and neither will Toto. Instead, “Oz” directed by Sam Raimi, tells how the Land of Oz and its Emerald City citizens came to get the Wizard of Oz. It also tells how the two witches got to be so evil as well.

Michelle Williams gives a brilliant but supported turn as Glinda the Good Witch. Rachel Weisz and Mila Kunis (who also does the voice of Meg Griffin in “Family Guy”) play sisters Evanora and Theodora. One’s intentionally evil, and the other turns evil because of hurt.

LisaKennedy of Denver Post said in her review, “None of them — good or evil — are as interesting or refreshing as the complicated roommates of the blockbuster musical "Wicked."”

James Franco smiles a lot as Oscar Diggs, a hustler/magician working the circus circuit in Kansas. “My friends call me Oz,” he tells Theodora, all when his hot-air balloon makes an unexpected landing in the Technicolor land of strange flora and fauna and a diverse citizenry desperate for a wizard to accomplish the prophesy.

It’s hard to think of Kunis as immature as her character. I think Kennedy is right when she says, “With her Bette Davis eyes, one gets the sense the actress sees through everything. The script robs her of that innate intelligence.” Plus the parts between Theodora and Oz, the main part of this movie’s plot, show that weakness of this visit. “Oz” drifts from its yellow-brick path every time there is a romance part, frustrated or otherwise. Kennedy says, “It finds its way back onto the magical route when it hews to a more egalitarian saga of people rising to the occasion of their own liberty.”

A handful of visual effects are definitely special. But many are also movie-making’s version of flying a lily. Besides, Evanora’s flying army of monkeys is only slightly more evil for being recast as sharp-fanged baboons.

The tornado that whisks Oz away in the hot-air balloon is impressive. Kennedy also adds, “And his zero-gravity moment in the twister is a thing of momentary beauty, but it still doesn't trump the wonder of the one Dorothy awoke in.”

Since I didn’t see this movie in the theater, I’ll let Kennedy describe the 3D feel: “Raimi, director of the first "Spider-Man" trilogy but also the cult classic "The Evil Dead," uses 3-D as he might in a horror flick. Shards of wood pierce the hot-air balloon's wicker basket. Spears thrown by henchmen appear to rain down on the audience. Cool. Barely. Because by now, aren't those gestures just the 3-D equivalent of a magician pulling a bouquet out of thin air?”

Kennedy then goes on to say, “If all this sounds harsher than seems fair for a movie with many a bright spot, chalk it up — some — to the DNA encoding of "The Wizard of Oz" on my soul.”

Let’s take a moment to give credit to two great and surprisingly the best characters in the movie: a flying monkey and a little girl made entirely out of china.

So many humans wonder is in these two characters made up of make-up, puppetry, digital effects and great performances.

Even though it’s nice to see Zach Braff (from the sitcom “Scrubs”) as Bob, Oz’s assistant in Kansas, it’s even better to see him once he is in Oz. He voices Finley, the little flying monkey in the bell-up costume. His chattering tangents are often as insightful as they are hilarious.

Like Braff, 13-year-old Joey King also has two roles. First, she shows up in the black-and-white segment of Kansas. With a nice touch of magic, Oz makes a believer out of the little girl watching his show in her wheelchair. She asks Oz to cure her, which he can’t do.

Later when Oz and Finley walk into a place called China Town (which we probably would think that Asians will now be in Oz), all they hear among the ruins is soft cries of a little porcelain girl. Oz saves her and she joins the journey.

With China Girl and Finley with Oz as he goes to destroy the wand of the witch he thinks is evil, Oz becomes a more worthy hero. Also, the film’s journey becomes funny and emotional and memorable all at the same time, like “The Wizard of Oz.”

I highly recommend you see this movie. Even though the acting isn’t really that good, I still believe that this is worth checking out. Especially since it’s within the same vein as the other movies I have reviewed based on original Grimm Brothers tales that were turned light-hearted for children.

Thanks for joining in on “Halloween Month” this year. I hope you enjoyed all of these reviews, go out tonight, dress up in your costume, get some candy, and watch some scary movies. I’ll see you next month.