Oz the Great and Powerful (2013) is directed by Sam Raimi and stars James Franco, Mila Kunis, Michelle Williams, Rachel Weisz, Zach Braff, Joey King, Bill Cobbs, Tony Cox, Stephen R. Hart, Abigail Spencer, and Bruce Campbell. The film is a prequel to The Wizard of Oz (1939) and follows Oz (Franco), a struggling magician/conman who’s transported to a magical land after getting caught in a tornado while riding in a hot-air balloon. There, he encounters three witches who all claim the other two are evil: Theodora (Kunis), Glinda (Williams), and Evanora (Weisz). To save his new home, Oz embarks on a journey along the yellow brick road to reach the capital, Emerald City, and inspire the various locals to rise up against their evil rulers. 

Franco isn’t awful as the titular Oz, but he does feel extremely miscast. As a lead character, he fails to bring the necessary whimsy that Judy Garland brought to her role in the original film. It’s also a bit uncomfortable, in hindsight, that Franco’s character is essentially a serial lady’s man who immediately flirts with any and every girl he sees. Considering Franco’s real-life history of sexual misconduct, it’s a tough detail to hop on board with. 

Likewise miscast is Mila Kunis as the iconic Wicked Witch of the West. Besides her notable star power at the time, I can’t see any clear reason why she was cast in the role. As the more human version of her character, she’s bland but serviceable; when her character transitions to an evil witch, her performance is laughably bad. Why cast someone as the wicked witch if they can’t even pull off the iconic laugh? It’s truly dumbfounding. 

Thankfully, the remaining performers seem to understand the kind of movie they’re in, and therefore, their performances feel tonally appropriate. That being said, the characters themselves are as bland as they come. There are even two main characters –Theodora and Evanora –  who are nearly indistinguishable. The characters could have easily been made into one, so why not streamline things? It was probably just to add more big names to the marketing material, but regardless, it seems counterintuitive to make your movie worse for the sake of selling more tickets. The best way to sell your movie is to make a great one, and that’s not changing anytime soon. For a place like Oz, one that can house any creature/personality the mind can imagine, there’s a real lack of compelling characters.  

The film often tries so desperately to emulate the timeless charms of the original that it never remembers to forge its own unique path. The Golden Age dialogue works well in a film that’s – you guessed it – from the golden age; but when applied to a modern film, it just comes across as awkward and silly. This would work better if the film committed to this late-30s approach, but it also features some of the worst aspects of modern filmmaking. For example, the pervasive use of cheap-looking green screens hurt my eyes so badly, they took at least 15 minutes to adjust. One of the most timeless elements of the original film is its tangible, handmade sets and practical visual effects. Although brighter, cleaner, and flashier, the visual effects in this sequel spawn little immersion. 

Although it’s fun to get a deeper exploration of the land of Oz, especially the darker elements, the movie is just far too similar in structure to the original and only distinguishes itself (negatively) by implementing some of the worst modern blockbuster tropes. For example, characters just blindly trust whoever they’ve talked to most recently as if the newest info is always the truth. On top of this, there are multiple instances where characters don’t just trust each other but immediately fall in love. How am I supposed to care about characters who are simultaneously unintelligent and don’t act like real humans? It’s just lazy filmmaking. For the love of God, the yellow brick road isn’t even yellow! This would make sense if the movie had addressed this, but it’s just completely ignored.

Overall, this isn’t a completely horrible experience, but it makes you wonder what the hell the studio was thinking. It wreaks of Disney’s worst corporate tendencies – prioritizing pre-release hype to pad their bottom line over actually focusing on creating a great piece of art. The acting stinks, the special effects blow, and it fails miserably at delivering the same whimsical thrills of its predecessor. Unless you’re a die-hard fan of the franchise, this is a movie a majority of audiences will be happy to let fade into obscurity. Even if Wicked is half as good as the original, it’ll still be three times better than this movie. C-