Oz the Great and Powerful 2013
This is a movie that I didn’t know much about when it came out, but I see it a lot on Disney’s movie club and movie rewards websites. The thing that has kept me from buying it is pretty lackluster reviews with only 59% positive on Rotten Tomatoes and an even more dismal 44 on Metacritic. It is a movie better rented than bought so I was happy to get a digital copy of it for free. The movie is a prequel to Wizard of Oz so there is automatically interest just to see how the Wizard of Oz came to be before Dorothy ever shows up. The musical Wicked takes a similar approach but from the point of view of the witches. The witches are here too, but the story for them is a little different.
James Franco as Oz really convinces the audience that he is not a real wizard. In fact he just seems to be James Franco doing some really bad acting. Johnny Depp was considered for the part but after Willy Wonka, Jack Sparrow, and the Mad Hatter, I am glad he was unable to do this movie, even though he would have been better. Robert Downey Jr. was also considered but opted out. Maybe they knew something. Visually the movie is eye-popping, though often clearly done on green screen. It was originally released in 3D, so there are a lot of scenes that were obviously for the benefit of those that paid for 3D and that can be annoying for us 2D watchers. Mila Kunis plays one of the witches and looks great (though the leather pants don’t seem to be of the same period as everyone else), but Michelle Williams seemed an odd choice for another witch. Some of the side actors are just not that great and sometimes bad.
Really it just isn’t a very good movie. I like the characters and the story is interesting, but the whole time I was watching I just felt like it should have been better. That said, I am glad to have watched it and it is entertaining throughout, so I still can’t mark it down too much. Maybe a guilty pleasure, so a B-.
Written: 20 Oct 2018
Owned on: Digital