Patron Pick – Oz the Great and Powerful

This special reward is available to Patreon patrons who pledge at the $10 or $20 monthly levels. Each month those patrons will pick a film for me to review. If they choose, they also get to include some of their thoughts about the movie. This Pick comes from Matt Harris.

Oz the Great and Powerful (2013)
Written by Sam Raimi, Mitchell Kapner, and David Lindsay-Abaire
Directed by Sam Raimi

The Wizard of Oz is the most significant notable American fairy tale. The others we typically think of are imports from Europe and folktales translated from their African roots into a new land in the case of the American South. It began in 1900 as the work of writer and theatrical producer L. Frank Baum. Combining fragments of his life experiences, Baum constructed a story about a little girl from Kansas and her adventures in the strange land of Oz. Two years after the book publication, Baum staged a live theatrical performance, so it is clear his intent was that this would always be a living story, not simply a book to be read but to be performed.

It makes sense that many films have been made based on the original novel. These started with a series of short silent films in the 1910s, with the classic 1939 movie being, in fact, the sixth film made based on The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Since this Sam Raimi film’s release, there have been four more adaptations, including an Indian musical and a Mexican animated picture. While these other films may have taken liberties with the source material, they did not achieve the level of exposure that The Great and Powerful did, being a Disney film. The way the source material is reinterpreted is so awful because so many people will have seen it.

In 1905, Oscar Diggs (James Franco) found his luck is running out. After working as a magician & con man in a traveling circus, the public starts to get wise to his ruse. He pushes his luck just a bit too far when he starts flirting with the strongman’s wife and must quickly get away via a hot air balloon. A tornado forms around the same time, and Oscar is sucked into it and dumped into another world, the Land of Oz. He meets Theodora (Mila Kunis), a young witch who tells him about the wicked witch that has plagued her homeland. There is a prophecy of a wizard falling from the sky who will save Oz, and Theodora believes it is Oscar. He decides to play along and is charged by Thedora’s older sister, the witch Evanora (Rachel Weisz), with traveling to the Dark Forest and killing the wicked witch. 

Along the way, Oscar befriends Finley, a flying monkey (Zach Braff), and China Girl (Joey King), the last living inhabitant of the delicate China Kingdom. Eventually, they discover that the wicked witch is named Glinda (Michelle Williams), and she is, in fact, not evil. It’s Evanora that is the true evil witch. Glinda decides to use the prophecy in her favor, understanding Oscar is not the great wizard from the story. They work with the Quadlings, the Munchkins, and the Tinkers to construct a massive series of tricks and cons to retake the Emerald City and drive the witches out. However, Evanora uses Theodora’s jealousy over Oscar and some magic to transform her sister into a horror that will plague Oz into the future.

Everything about this movie is a mistake. Casting James Franco is one of the most egregious things the film does, and this role highlights everything I despise about his acting style. I won’t get into what a shitty person he is; you should google that if you’re interested, but I will focus on what an awful actor he is. Not once, from start to finish, did I believe a single thing Franco said as Oscar. Every line hit with a heavy thud, forced out of him with such disinterest. I think he was trying, which makes it even worse because even when Franco is putting his all into it, the performance comes off as leaden. I am in the camp that thinks Dave Franco is the better actor of the two. 

The miscasting continues with Mila Kunis as Theodora. Not only does the film broadly telegraph that she will become the Wicked Witch to such an absurd degree, but we also see that Kunis doesn’t have what it takes to play this role. The attempts at showcasing rage as the Wicked Witch have all the energy of a mediocre high school play. I also think Kunis isn’t that great of an actor, especially with a part that is so iconic and stylized. She’s as bland and boring as Franco. Rachel Weisz is a tad bit better, but not much. And this is where you realize that the script is doing much of the damage. Weisz is a good actress in other pictures, so the fact that she feels so awful here speaks to the people responsible for the story. Michelle Williams, who plays Glinda with complete earnestness, was the only actor I felt was giving it their all. She’s about the only live-action actor I could stomach. As for the voice acting of Zach Braff and Joey King, they were both passable.

This film relies heavily on computer-generated imagery to the point that scenes where characters are just walking down the Yellow Brick Road, feel like moments from older films where people are driving cars against obvious rear projection. A sense of heightened artificiality isn’t necessarily bad when trying to portray the Land of Oz. There is no realistic way for many of the concepts and features of an imaginary world like this to look. I will give them that. In some ways, I was reminded of the far superior Speed Racer film, which also didn’t try to hide the seams regarding the special effects. Here though, it seems to get worse as the film goes on. There’s a fight between Glinda and Evanora near the end that is exceedingly awful looking. 

It’s also no surprise that this film trots out so many Easter eggs and references to the movie people actually like. We even have instances where Oscar is responsible for making the lion cowardly after scaring it with a magic trick. The allied forces are constructing scarecrow puppets to act as a diversion to get into the Emerald City. There are countless hints that Theodora will become the Wicked Witch through heavy-handed dialogue. So many things don’t have a bearing on Oscar’s story but are there because the audience will get the reference but not an actual commentary on that reference. It’s a kind of moviemaking I despise because it is less about telling a good story than reminding people of a better movie they have seen.

I enjoy most of Sam Raimi’s movies, but this is a complete dud. A film about Oz should be exciting and surprising; this movie has none of that. It feels incredibly formulaic and reminds us why the 1939 musical version is so beloved. Having people be in a physical location will always be better than standing on a blue screen sound stage and filling in the cool stuff at a later date. I like seeing actors interact with their environment instead of just seeming to float in a void. But this is not even the worst thing this film does.

The absolute worst thing about Oz the Great and Powerful is how shockingly misogynistic it is. Theodora’s entire motivation once she is transformed into the Wicked Witch is to get revenge on Oscar out of jealousy. This movie isn’t passing the Bechdel Test anytime soon, as every woman in the film is focused entirely on this man. L. Frank Baum was a suffrage activist. Susan B. Anthony stayed with his family when she came to Aberdeen, Kansas, because the Baums were known to be “woke” on women’s rights. In The Marvelous Land of Oz, one of Baum’s many sequels, he tells the story of Jinjur, a young woman who leads a revolt to get the men of Oz to chip in on doing the household chores. The greatest heroine of the Oz series is not Dorothy Gale but Ozma, the princess of Oz who believes in gender equality. Baum’s wife and mother-in-law were deeply involved in the suffrage movement. So to have an adaptation of his work whose plot hinges on a woman getting jealous and petty feels like a slap to the author’s face and everything he represents.

I didn’t expect much from a Disney movie, but they lowered the bar with this one. Oz the Great and Powerful is a disgusting and tedious affair. It fails to hold true to even the most fundamental themes of the original work. While I am a big fan of filmmakers reinterpreting a piece of art to do so in such a gross, ugly manner is a waste of resources. Raimi is a fun director, but this was a massive miss.