Oz the Great and Powerful review

“Oz the Great and Powerful” sure made my kids laugh. I have to say this movie was funny, enchanting, adorable, colorful, and entertaining. The beginning of the movie parallels “The Wizard of Oz” in the sense that it uses black and white and a tornado that is what leads to the story line. It also parallels its predecessor by bringing characters from the beginning of the movie to the colorful world of Oz. Of course the characters are visually different (some) but we know who they are. Like in “The Wizard of Oz” the evil neighbor becomes the witch, the men become the lion, tin man, and scarecrow.

The plot of the movie revolves around how Oz came to be the wizard of (well) Oz. In this movie we learn who the “Oz” is and how he ended up in “Oz” a place that is named after him. In the original movie we learn the great wizard is a fraud and well this is what we learn in the new movie. We learn about his dreams of achieving by being an egoist, fraud, egotist, manipulative, womanizer and pretty much anything that will work to his advantage. Although, he later learns that all of the qualities I described before are detrimental to his character. He then chooses to make a change. What’s not clear is if this change comes about his own inner good or the presence of Glinda or Annie (they are both played by Michelle Williams) who apparently was someone special to him before he came to Oz. Overall, he chooses to change and as he makes this change he shows us how Oz became the wizard we know of from the original movie.

The cast in my opinion was nicely put together, although I wish some actors had exchanged roles. James Franco delivered in his performance as the “Oz”. Being at times extremely funny and bit annoying but I guess you can attribute that to his flaws from his character. Nevertheless, Franco’s performance was great. Mila Kunis’ (Theodora) performance was okay. Ugh, I’m sorry her acting was good but her voice can be very annoying. Rachael Weisz (Evanora) her performance was enjoyable and believable. I think she was my favorite of the witches but I think I would have enjoyed seeing her play Glinda instead. Michelle Williams (Glinda) also had a good performance but I think she was very predictable. By predictable I mean the white dress and the angelic face. I think the movie would have been a bit more interesting if they would have cast Michelle Willimas as (Evanora) and Rachel Weisz as (Glinda). Why? Because if they had been cast that way, people would have really been surprised to find out whom the real evil one was. Unlike figuring out really quickly who was the evil and which one was good. For me that takes away excitement I believe the twist in characters would have made the movie much more interesting. Again this is only my humble opinion. Overall, these actresses did a good job. I can’t forget Zach Braff. In my opinion he was the most enjoyable and funny character of all. I applaud his double performance first as a human and then as the flying monkey. I’m glad he was cast for this part because I believe and from the audiences reaction he was meant to play this part. Lastly, I can’t forget China girl. I thought her story was cute but I also felt there was little concern for her too. Why? Well, first of she is never given a name. Secondly, when she asked what her name is there is really no response. The camera seems to move on to some other part of the story. It just makes me question, what her purpose was in the story? Was it to add the cuteness factor in the movie or will there be a story about her in a future film? Anyways, I thought she was adorable I just wished she would have had a name rather then just being called China girl.

The costumes were great a really enjoyed the wardrobe and I think it fit the characters well. I just hoped they wouldn’t reveal too much about who the characters were, but they did. Yet, I can’t deny the nice costumes. The colors in the movie picture I have to say were very nice. I really liked how they started black and white and then progressed to vivacious colors that made every object in the movie look beautiful. The one thing I would heavily critique is that in some parts of the movie you could really tell when animation was being shown rather then the artists. One specific scene where Oz is about to fall over shows him clearly and then as the shot pulls further apart it begins to look as a cartoon animation and then back to Franco. I did not like that much but again it was a quick scene and I think that they were really trying to make it a bit more dramatic. In the end, the movie was still nice and the picture great. Only some minor details in my opinion could have been fixed or taken out. It was still a good movie.

As I said before my kids loved the movie and it had a little bit of everything from selfishness, sad story, love, funny, etc.… I also enjoyed the movie very much. Reluctant at first to see this movie in the theaters, I just wanted to wait for the DVD. I’m glad I took my kids to see it because there was never a dull moment. If I were to rate this movie I’d give it a three out of five, for the reasons I’ve previously explained.  

Love,

Kenia