SPOILERS AHEAD!
The Wizard of Oz seems to be a popular idea bucket in recent years. There’s the Muppet version of the original story, Wicked the novel and its sequels, Wicked the play, there’s even a Phineas and Ferb spoof of it (which is pretty great.) And now there’s another competitor on the market- Oz the Great and Powerful, which tells the wizard’s story. What did I think of, you ask?
Um… ah… well, see… hmm… how should I put this… mmm… ahh, well…
I didn’t think it was all that good.
Now, it wasn’t terrible. There are a lot of things about this movie that are extremely well done.
Number one, the animation of the landscapes and most of the film work in general. The movie opens in black and white, exactly like the 1939 MGM movie that I think most everyone has seen (with or without a Pink Floyd soundtrack.) The opening credits look like a pop-up book and allude to later parts in the film- i.e. when Mila Kunis’ name comes up, a shadow of the Wicked Witch is shown. The transition from that to the brightly colored land of Oz was amazing- at first you didn’t quite notice it, but once you did… it sort of takes your breath away. And the landscapes of Oz are just jaw-droppingly, epically, beautiful. My personal favorite was the giant crystal flowers that open as Oz (the character, not the land) passes them.
The music works very well, with the film, and, although the individual pieces are not exactly iconic, they do blend very well together, making the music seems somewhat seamless. They even included subtle musical tributes to songs in the earlier movies. I love it when composers do that.
Another thing I really enjoyed was the costumes- specifically, the dresses and outfits of the witches. My favorite would be Theodora’s first outfit- I’d actually love to recreate it. But I really liked how each dress was very different, yet they all shared a similar shape and cut- and I adored the bead work on Evanora’s dresses. If you’d like to see more about the costumes, watch this: First Look: Costumes of Oz the Great and Powerful.
Also, before I get to criticizing it (because there’s a lot of that coming) I would like to say that I’m not saying this movie was the worst I’ve ever seen (no, that’d be Wicker Man.) If all you’re looking for is a short lasting sweet puff of entertainment, then this is probably a good movie for you to go check out. The cast is star-studded- James Franco, Mila Kunis, Zach Braff. The animation is good. If that’s all you need, feel free to stop reading. Because now’s the part where I tear the movie apart with rusty scissors.
For such a big budget and a reputable franchise, not to mention an excellent cast and some pretty solid source material, this movie fell far, far, far short of my expectations for it. Overall, I just found myself… disappointed.
The first reason may seem a little small- maybe I’ll seem like a movie snob, or just cynical- but the green screen effects are TERRIBLE in this movie. It wouldn’t be as obvious if the movie as a whole wasn’t the aforementioned the gorgeous that it is, but since it is, every single green screen flying effect- which there are a lot of- looks absolutely ridiculous. It looks fake. The “layered” shots (where images are layered one in front of the other so it becomes a moving collage of sorts) are ridiculously unnecessary and pulled me out of the film- which wasn’t that immersive anyway. This is seriously not on par with my expectations of Disney film makers.
The second thing I hate… the repeating elements. Now, I don’t mean the connections between Oz and our world- those I actually enjoyed. I mean the “I’ll hide behind something until the witch goes away. Oh, no, I made a noise, she’s going to find me! Don’t make a noise, don’t even breathe! Oh, I guess she thought it was nothing because she’s flying away” scenes. It happens more than once- and once is enough for something as stupidly cliche as that. Another repeating element? Jump scares, evil things appearing from nowhere and screaming at you. And it’s just a cliche that’s been done too often before, not to mention better.
The dialogue… calling it atrocious is polite, especially in the film’s first 20 to 40 minutes. Every line sounds awkward and melodramatic, even though the actors really seem to be trying to make them sound natural. But it just can’t be done. This is what disappointed me the most out of all the disappointing elements. I expect more from Disney films. You can say I shouldn’t expect to much, most of the audience is children, but you know what? Phineas and Ferb, a Disney kid’s show with fifteen minute episodes, uses better vocabulary, AND makes it sound natural. Pirates of the Caribbean is a Disney film, and the writing in that is superb. Freakin’ WALL-E had better writing than this, and the first 45 minutes of it barely use language!
But my main problem with Oz… is the same problem I have with every prequel ever made. You already know how everything will end. There’s no weight to the Wizard’s “death” because you know he’s there in The Wizard of Oz. You know the witch sisters will be defeated because they live on the outskirts of Oz later. You know Glinda will live because she guides Dorothy in the future. There’s no suspense. There’s no tension. There’s no anticipation. Literally the only thing that I was curious about going in was which witch would turn into the green witch- once that happened (which wasn’t even halfway through the film), I really didn’t have much left to get excited over.
So, in conclusion… Oz is okay. Just okay. I’d say a less than average okay. Maybe some of you disagree, maybe you think I’m being too harsh or too gentle. But I give Oz the Great and Powerful a 6.2 on a scale of one to ten- mostly fantastic visuals and a great cast overshadowed by predictability, cliches, and awful dialogue.
Love,
The Femme Fatale Farmgirl
Femme Fatale Farmgirl 