Oz the Great and Powerful - 3 smiles

What prevents “Oz the Great and Powerful” from being an exceptional movie is James Franco has been cast in the lead role of Oscar Diggs, the tent-show magician from Kansas who eventually becomes the Wizard of Oz. Franco is too shallow and too unskilled to carry this story. You don’t like him at the beginning of the movie, you don’t like him in the middle and you barely like him at the end. He just isn’t able to get us to empathize with his character’s journey to redemption. Robert Downey Jr., who was rumored to be the director’s first choice, would have been a better Oz. In addition, the script is confusing. Once Oscar gets to Oz, he is welcomed as the prophesied Wizard who will rescue the kingdom from evil, but first he has to figure out which witch is the evil one and there’s no chemistry in his interactions with the very good Glinda (a sweet Michelle Williams), the naïve Theodora (Mila Kunis) and the imperious Evanora (a larger-than-life Rachel Weisz). On the positive side, there are two powerful characters – a winged monkey and a small girl made out of china. Zach Braff is effective as the voice of the little monkey in bell-hop attire and his muttered asides are often as insightful as they are hilarious. Thirteen-year-old Joey King voices China Girl as Oz rescues her from her ruined China Town. However, because these two characters are the result of special effects, you do have to wonder why they’re more powerful than the real people.  Director Sam Raimi has a keen sense of style with the black-and-white opening capturing the drabness of Dust Bowl Kansas to the widescreen lushness of an very colorful Oz.

The movie opens, like the original, in dusty Kansas with a two-bit carnival magician/con man Oscar Diggs (Franco) plying his trade. Thanks to a tornado and a magical voyage, Oscar, or Oz as he’s called, arrives in the Land of Oz. He’s greeted not by Munchkins, but by a beautiful witch named Theodora (Kunis) in leather trousers. Soon Oz is on a quest to save the land and kill the wicked witch, but with the arrival of Theodora’s sister Evanora (Weisz) and Glinda the Good (Williams), it’s not immediately clear to him which witch is the one he’s supposed to kill. “Oz the Great and Powerful” wisely does not try to mimic the original although there is an Emerald City and a yellow brick road, not to mention some Munchkins. It’s enjoyable family entertainment. Too bad it's just a good movie, not a great one. 3/9/13