Oz: The Great and Powerful (2013)

Film: Oz: The Great and Powerful (2013)
Stars: James Franco, Mila Kunis, Michelle Williams, Rachel Weisz, Zach Braff
Director: Sam Raimi
Oscar History: No nominations
Snap Judgment Ranking: 1/5 stars

No one knows quite how to package a beloved property like Disney.  Think of how many fairy tales are driven by that magical castle and all the wonder it has in store.  So, on the surface, if anyone is going to take on the Oz tale (and really, let's be totally honest here, no one needed to take it on as the 1939 classic still stands tall), Disney was probably your best bet.  What we ended up with was a glossy, bloated, occasionally intriguing, and saccharine prequel to Dorothy's journey to the Emerald City, proving that while Disney can make the classics sing, perhaps they should leave those that have already hit perfection alone.

(Spoilers ahead, but the film is so blatant that you'll see them coming a mile away, proving this warning unnecessary) I'm not going to give you a background on Oz, because if you're at a movie blog, you're already familiar, and if you're not, get thyself to the Netflix queue and put it at the top of the list.  This particular installment in the House that Baum Built tells the tale of the Wizard himself, a man of parlor tricks and not a legitimate sorcerer himself, who finds his way on a tornado trip to Oz.  There he meets three witches, Theodora (Kunis), Evanora (Weisz), and Glinda (Williams), all of which are at war with each other, and while it's pretty obvious to everyone which one is going to be the true "good witch," the movie for some reason strings you along for at least a half hour trying to toy that perhaps Weisz/Kunis are the good witches.

The film then enters a long, protracted set of battles, with Kunis being revealed as the Wicked Witch of the West and Weisz eventually as the Wicked Witch of the East.  We get introduced to the munchkins, the Tinkers, and we got throwbacks to the Scarecrows, Cowardly Lions, and dozens of other allusions to the world of Oz.  The film ends with Franco using modern (by the standards of 1915) technology to "create" magic, and thus saving Oz and the day.

The film has a lot of gaping holes in its plot, and principally among them is the question of why Oz needed a Wizard at all.  The two sides each have highly powerful witches to fight their battles, and yet, in a plot that reeks of sexism, they can't get along until a man comes in to sort out the situation.

The film also fails on the entire black and white beginning, drawing allusions to future cast members (we see Williams and Zach Braff playing different, similar characters) but not to others (Weisz and Kunis are nowhere to be found, making the throwback lacking, particularly since there were two key female parts in the beginning half that would have worked perfectly with them in the parts).

The acting in the film is all over the place.  The film is at its best with Weisz and Williams, both truly great actresses, who understand the material better than their costars.  They aren't afraid to wink at the audience (in Williams case, quite literally), and shoot their characters to the rafters, playing cartoonish in a film that calls for it.  Williams, on the face of it, has the tougher role of the two (it's always easier to play the over-the-top villain), but both are mad fun, campy but clever.  Both actors have done the mass-level entertainment before (Weisz in The Mummy franchise, Williams on Dawson's) and know not to take the script too seriously.

The remaining three cast members fare far worse.  Braff, first playing a sidekick and then a flying monkey that mirrors his real-world persona, has been playing J.D. for so long I sometimes think that he's forgotten how to play anyone else.  If Garden State was any indication, that may be his one signature role because he is too limited to do much else; I know that sounds harsh, but whenever he gets outside of that element, he falls apart.

Franco, an actor of significantly stronger range, also doesn't bode well in popcorn flicks.  Franco is at his best playing the quiet, sexualized characters that he created in Milk and Howl.  His broad grin and handsome face seem like they should be perfect for marquee fare, but you always "catch him acting," going on wide swings with his performance, not quite sure where to go with such a traditional character.

Mila Kunis seems to be receiving the brunt of the criticism in the film, though, and part of that is that she's being compared to Weisz and Williams, which of course is unfair because they are arguably two of the best actresses of their generations.  However, Kunis is badly miscast as Theodora, a naive witch who falls for the Wizard and then is tricked into becoming wicked.  Granted, no one is going to be able to come out from the shadow of Margaret Hamilton's original creation (perhaps the cinema's most iconic villain), but Kunis can't seem to pull off naive (Black Swan has sort of ruined that for her), and for a woman whose most celebrated creation is an animated character, Kunis also is too histrionic to play over-the-top.  And also, future casting directors, please be advised that Kunis should never be doing voiceover-it is impossible to not conure images of Meg Griffin when you see Kunis offscreen during the shadow-y sequences with the witch.

I don't want to leave the Kunis portion of this article without pointing out that while Kunis may not have the range of a Williams or Weisz, that isn't to say that with the right casting director, she couldn't be dynamite.  I would love to see what Tarantino or David Lynch doing neo-noir could pull off with her.  She's a fascinating celebrity, and occasionally an excellent performer, and so I hope that she continues to challenge herself, and doesn't just make "object of my desire" comedies and March-release populist films in the future.

Unlike Kunis, though, there's no saving this movie.  The art direction is garish, and the effects over-the-top, in a similar fashion to Alice in Wonderland a few years ago, perhaps getting even further into the acid-trip color pallette than that film enjoyed.  While I think it could be a strong contender for an Oscar nomination later this year (the Box Office and prestige of Robert Stromberg being key factors), it shouldn't be anywhere near the Dolby.

But those are my thoughts-what are yours?  Did you have a favorite witch in Oz?  Where do you think the careers of Mila Kunis and James Franco should go?  And what prequel will Disney come up with next?