A typically vacant James Franco helps sink the already-waterlogged Oz the Great and Powerful.
Sam Raimi’s (Drag Me To Hell) horribly titled, $200 million Oz the Great and Powerful is a movie that uses up all of its creative energy in the first scene as a decoy to lure us into the vapidity that lies just beyond its brilliant opening minutes.
In fact, the stellar introductory sequence contrasts bizarrely and unevenly with the rest of the film, functioning as an out-of-place prologue that’s nevertheless the film’s highlight. We begin in Kansas at a makeshift carnival, the screen a winsome coat of black and white. We’re introduced to Oscar Diggs (James Franco, The Letter), who is a magician with an act based more on scam than real sorcery.
These initial moments are wistful and sweet, akin to something a sobered, PG-rated Terry Gilliam might construct. Yet whether we find Oscar tinkering with a Thomas Edison-inspired trick in his cluttered trailer or performing onstage with his trusty, somewhat inept assistant (Zach Braff, The High Cost of Living) working behind a curtain, everything here feels fleeting. It’s as if this gorgeous, breathless, infinitesimally small sequence could blow away at any moment. And it does.
Oscar, fleeing the carnival after being chased off by an angry husband he has cuckolded, floats in a hot air balloon all the way to a mystical world, and, at the same time, into another movie. Suddenly, we’re surrounded by Technicolor terrains of trees and mountains and flowers that magically open their petals as soon as the camera pans past them.
You guessed it — we’re in Oz, or so says Mila Kunis (Ted), who plays her character, Theodora, like a lifeless android given nothing more to do than stand around, flash pretty smiles and add superfluous gestures to her otherwise wooden dialogue. And when (spoiler alert) she becomes the Wicked Witch of the West out of lustful frustration, she cackles like a high schooler turned misfit turned unconvincing villain.
Theodora tells Oscar he is the “wizard” Oz has been waiting for and promptly brings him to Emerald City to meet another witch, Evanora (Rachel Weisz, The Bourne Legacy). There, Oscar learns about a massive gold fortune he will inherit if he is able to defeat the evil forces plaguing the land. Along the way, we meet a flying monkey (also Braff) and yet another witch (Michelle Williams, Take This Waltz), all while traveling endlessly up and down the yellow brick road.
It all proves to be a massive bore, a fact nearly impossible to fathom given both the brilliance of the opening sequence and the time-honored source material inspiring the film.
One could perhaps praise Raimi — who has been making good niche movies for a long, long time — for the 3D effects. It doesn’t look quite as splendorous as the massive budget would suggest, but there are enough pleasing visuals to keep you awake, at the very least. Maybe.
What’s truly concerning are the character-to-actor relationships. Franco plays Oscar as the same Franco you’d probably see at the bagel store: with half-baked squinty eyes and a tendency to comment on how awkward or out of place he feels. Even when surrounded by the inspiration of Oz, Oscar has nothing interesting to contribute.
His brain is full of hot air and salami. One could even make the case that, based on the amount of women he seduces in the story, his motivation comes from somewhere other than his noggin.
And these women are used as nothing more than eye-candy pawns. In one scene, there’s Williams, with not a word to utter, in a too-tight laced corset. In another scene, Kunis meets Oscar and promptly hooks up with him, with only five or so minutes elapsing in between. It’s truly a shame these phenomenal actresses — especially Williams — are given nothing to do but look pretty while golden boy Franco saves the day.
The worst perpetrator, though, is the man at the creative helm. There’s no classic Raimi campiness, the trademark tool used to elevate his past horror films, to be found in Oz the Great and Powerful. Some characters screech, make faces and try to be scary, and in other cases say silly things to try to make us laugh. But in the end, all efforts prove to be fruitless.
In a cold grave somewhere, L. Frank Baum is turning restlessly. Somebody forgot to follow the yellow brick road.
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