What you might not remember about the original Wizard of Oz is that the great Wizard
was a weasel. He tells Dorothy: “Kill a woman, steal her broom and bring it
back to me; I’ll give you whatever you want.” And then, when Dorothy delivers,
he ditches her in his hot-air balloon. Oz is kind of an asshole.
He hasn’t changed much when we rejoin him in the prequel Oz the Great and Powerful, a title desperately in need of a new title or a perhaps just a comma. Oz is a
lecherous little cretin, also a horn dog who charms the ruby knickers
off anything with a pulse. After he’s whisked to Oz on a black-and-white twister,
he saves the day — and, later, rules Oz — using deception and trickery. He does
it for gold and power, and to become a God figure, whose booming voice commands
worship from the subjects of his magical kingdom. He begins the film as a con
artist in a trailer and ends it as a con artist in a castle. He’s barely
heroic, yet here he is the star of his own movie, one that frames him as an
infallible hero, though he’s easily one of the most flawed anti-heroes in
Disney’s vast repertory. Even Jack Sparrow, cutthroat and pirate, had more humanity … and also charisma.
Such is often the case with prequels: they answer questions no
one was asking, and add back story to characters that are best left vague and
mysterious. And in many cases, the prequel stories only invalidate the original
films. Certainly Darth Vader lost some of his edge after George Lucas neutered
him with prequels, and here Oz is made to look even more foolish and petty than
he ever did 74 years ago in the timeless children’s classic. I’ve been known to
howl with disgust at sequels, but I’ll take them all over a prequel any day.
All that said, there is some magic in Oz the Great and Powerful, a sparkly and colorful new creation
within L. Frank Baum’s fantasy world. Oz has seen some visual duds before (Tin Man, Return to Oz), but this one is pulsing with organic energy as river
fairies whistle tunes, pink butterflies adorn leafless trees and Munchkins —
yes, Munchkins are back — do little dances on yellow-brick roads. I could pick
apart the hero all day, but the movie meets the high visual expectations we put
on stories set in the Oz universe. Some of the panoramic scenes are sorta breathtaking, and I love that image of Oz exiting a forest, the leaves and branches framing the Emerald City; it mirrors a similar scene in the original film.
After a delightful vaudeville act that serves as the opening
credits, Sam Raimi’s film begins, wisely, in a square black-and-white picture
framed within the movie screen. It opens on a circus, where sideshow magician
Oscar “Oz” Diggs (James Franco) is staging sleight-of-hand tricks on dumbstruck
Kansas
farmers. Notice how some of the early effects in the film — a fire breather’s
flames, falling snowflakes, a fluttering dove — breach the side of the picture,
hinting at the Technicolor transformation that’s to come.
Once Oz is in Oz, he finds himself embroiled in a witches’ feud,
with gothic sisters Evanora (Rachel Weisz) and Theodora (Mila Kunis) waging war
with the bubbly Glinda (Michelle Williams) over the fate of Oz, the kingdom,
and the heart of Oz, the man. The witches are good sports, especially Williams,
even as they trounce on the legacy of the 1939 film. For instance, did you know
the Wicked Witch was so wretched because she was one of Oz’s jilted lovers?
Yeah, neither did I. The next thing they’ll tell us is that Dorothy is Oz’s
daughter, abandoned with Auntie Em after her magician dad skipped town. That
could be the prequel’s sequel.
I've already mentioned Star Wars once, but this movie bears many resemblances to it: Evanora, the Palpatine figure, conducts electricity through her fingertips; Theodora, the bratty non-believer with the bruised ego, is turned evil and ugly in an Anakin-to-Vader sorta way; Theodora's broken heart also mirrors Anakin's petty infatuation with his absent lover; and Glinda, the Yoda stand-in, has a Jedi-Sith fight in the Emerald City's throne room. (It was at this point that my wife turned to me and whispered, loud enough for others to hear, "Witches be bitches.") It's as if the prequel genre itself can't escape the worst manifestation of prequels, Star Wars Episode 1-3.
The film is full of colorful locations and wild characters
including a talking and flying monkey in a bellhop outfit, haunted forests with
carnivorous orchids, a very emeraldy Emerald
City and a Chinatown ,
a village made entirely out of fancy dishware. Chinatown ’s
last inhabitant is a sweet little ceramic citizen orphaned in the witch war. Oz
uses his “magic” superglue to restore her broken legs so she can join in his
quest to bring peace to the land. The little China Girl will be everyone’s
favorite character. She was mine.
All the CGI and green-screen effects are nifty, but they give Oz a clinical and sterile feel. Everything
looks too clean and too perfect, as if the film were created in a lab, a
computer lab. None of it feels lived in or inhabited. Parts of it, including Oz
bouncing down a rocky waterfall, look more like a video game than a movie. In
other parts, the only real things we’re watching are Franco, Kunis and
presumably the ground under their feet. Everything else is green-screened in
later during post-production. Try they do, but few actors can convincingly look
at make-believe CGI effects with any conviction. They call it “movie magic,”
but I can see right through the illusion.
My real gripe, though, is with Franco and his Oz. I’ve already
told you that Oz is poorly written and realized, but it bears repeating. He’s a
pimp, a pusher, a bully, and the fact that he has his own movie would be
strangely unsettling for Dorothy, his ultimate victim. As for Franco, he winks
and smirks his way through Oz and his
attitude never seems to match the tone of the rest of the movie. It’s as if
they hired James Franco to play James Franco. A comparative performance would
be Franco’s meta-hosting of the Oscars, where he stood around and played the
grinning fool everyone knew he was. What’s so odd is that this isn’t Franco’s
first prequel; he did Rise of the Planet
of the Apes in 2011. In that film, his acting matched the dialogue and it benefited the picture. Here, though, Franco can’t get his footing, and he
never seems to try.
Maybe some of my vitriol is nestled in my belief that some films
shouldn’t be touched. Certainly The
Wizard of Oz is one of those films. (Casablanca and Pulp Fiction are others.) It is a timeless movie that existed in
its own time and place, and replicating it, even in prequel fashion, tarnishes
some of its sparkle. Oz the Great and Powerful
can’t touch what The Wizard of Oz did, and the fact that anyone thought it was
possible is just dopey. They put forth a good effort, but it just doesn’t work.
In the end, the road to Oz isn’t just paved with yellow bricks,
but also good intentions and terrible follow-through.
(Like with many visually-dazzling movies, I'm going to post more photos than normal.)
