Directed by: Sam Raimi.
Written by: Mitchell Kapner and David Lindsay-Abaire based on the books by L. Frank Baum.
Starring: James Franco (Oz), Mila Kunis (Theodora), Rachel Weisz (Evanora), Michelle Williams (Annie / Glinda), Zach Braff (Frank / Finley), Bill Cobbs (Master Tinker), Joey King (Girl in Wheelchair / China Girl), Tony Cox (Knuck), Stephen R. Hart (Winkie General), Abigail Spencer (May), Bruce Campbell (Winkie Gate Keeper).
When
I watched Oz: The Great and Powerful a few days ago, I did so in 2-D. I don’t
really have anything against 3-D per se – although normally, I don’t really
think it adds much to the experience – but the time of the 2-D show was just
much more convenient to me, so that’s what I saw. While I was watching the
film, I couldn’t help but wonder if director Sam Raimi – or any director who
works in 3-D these days – considers how the film is going to look in 2-D.
Afterall, many audiences will still their work on the big screen in 2-D, and
many more will do so over the years on televisions in their own home. The
reason why I ask this is that are moments in Oz: The Great and Powerful which
were cringe worthy in 2-D – blatant moments where things fly at the screen with
absolutely no reason to, other than to give the audience their money’s worth on
the 3-D surcharge. There were other bad moments – although maybe they were just
as bad in 3-D – where the visual effects seemed off – a moment where Oz and
Theodora are running over a hill for example, that simple seemed clumsy.
I
wondered these things for a few reasons – for one, they stood out like a sore
thumb. For another, the film is directed by Sam Raimi, who is a gifted
director, and whose earlier films all had his signature style – a style that
shows up in only one shot of Oz: The Great and Powerful (the plants with the
eyes, and how they see Oz and company in case you’re curious), but for the most
part, Oz: The Great and Powerful has none of Raimi’s fingerprints on it. It
could have been made by just about anyone, because more and more of these
special effects epics are starting to have a homogenous look to them. The other
reason I noticed was much simpler – I was bored. Oz: The Great and Powerful
utterly lacks in imagination in its storytelling, and along with the flaws in
the visual effects, this made it impossible for me to be swept up in the
movie’s “magical world”. The world of Oz in this film is so clearly fake, that
it took me out of the movie. An even bigger problem is that the characters seem
as fake as their surroundings.
Compare
this to the original The Wizard of Oz from 1939. Visual effects have obviously
grown by leaps and bounds over the past 74 years – but that’s not necessarily a
good thing in every respect. The Oz in the 1939 classic was still a “real”
place – everything in it looked as though it could touched and felt, because,
of course, it could. Everything in the new movie looks like a computer game.
And on another level, although the effects in the 1939 version show their age
in many ways, the story is so compelling, the characters so relatable, real and
either lovable or hateable, that kids still get drawn into the movie’s spell
all these decades later. I doubt anyone will be watching Oz: The Great and
Powerful decades from now.
The
movie stars James Franco as a carnival magician/con man/womanizer, who while
running away from an angry husband, jumps into a hot air balloon and ends up in
Oz when a twister hits. The first person he meets is Theodora (Mila Kunis), a
witch, but a seemingly good one. She tells Oz of a prophecy of a wizard
descending from the sky who bares the land’s name bringing peace to all. And of
course said king who be showered with riches. So first Oz seduces her, then
they head off to the castle where they meet Theodora’s sister Evanora (Rachel
Weisz), who informs Oz of something Theodora forgot to mention. In order to
rein, he needs to kill the “Wicked Witch” Glinda (Michelle Williams), who lives
in the Dark Forest. So, with the help of his new flying monkey Finley (Zach
Braff), Oz heads into the Dark Forest to kill the Wicked Witch.
If
the movie was hoping to surprise us with a role reversal, I doubt too many will
be shocked to discover that Glinda isn’t really the Wicked Witch – Evanora is.
And because Oz broke her heart, Theodora turns wicked as well. You’re not
fooling anyone by having the brunettes be evil, and the blonde being as pure as
driven snow.
The
bigger problem with the trio of witches though is simple – they are all
extremely boring characters. This is doubly disappointing when you think of how
the original Wizard of Oz (and all the Oz books) was one of the few children
fantasy series to have strong, female protagonists. In this one, they have been
replaced by a womanizing huckster, who treats the women poorly – and the women
behave as one dimensional stereotypes. I love Michelle Williams – she’s one of
the best actresses working today – but she’s not really right for a
goody-two-shoes role like Glinda (how they hell they DID NOT cast Amy Adams in
this role is a mystery to me).Instead of being sweet, innocent and lovable,
Williams is just kind of bland. Weisz is even worse, as she’s one dimensionally
evil and obviously so from her first scene. The film never really gives her
much to do. I think they tried to make Theodora a more complicated character,
but her transformation from wide eyed innocent to cackling super witch is so
abrupt that it feels unnatural – not to mention the fact that Kunis doesn’t look
natural in green paint – she’s just one more phony looking special effect. James
Franco is fine, I guess, as the charlatan wizard, but there isn’t much he can
do with the role. At least Zach Braff is an entertaining annoying flying
monkey.
In
the past few years, I have read more than one piece about how all big budget
movies look the same – that they no longer have any style of their own, but all
have the same “blockbuster” aesthetic. I still don’t know if I quite believe that
– no matter what you think of Nolan’s Batman movies, they are all undeniably
his in every way – including visually, and the same goes for Michael Bay. But
these type of fantasy movies are starting to run together, and have little to
differentiate themselves from each other, and suck all the style from the
director. Is there anything in Oz that marks it as a Sam Raimi film? He is a
gifted visual director, but here it’s layered under so much candy colored crap
it’s hard to tell. Tim Burton had a similar problem with Planet of the Apes
(truly, the least Tim Burton-esque of all Tim Burton films) and Alice in
Wonderful. It seems to bigger your budget it, they more your film has to look
like everything else.
