So without a doubt we all love The Wizard of Oz. When there were rumours an Oz The Great And Powerful would be released most of us were devastated. People wanted to stick with the traditional Oz and felt there was no room for a new remake that was predicted to fail. I disagreed and thought no, this film will be separated from the last and instead of a remake it could be seen as a film standing alone. I also thought that people who opposed the film were probably just scared that the film would be so good that it would be compared and even be better that the wonderful Wizard of Oz.
At first the idea of James Franco as Oz seemed a great choice but then I thought, his previous films such as Lovelace(the story of a woman abused by the porn industry), Spring Breakers(where he plays a drug dealer) and About Cherry(another film about porn) do not all cry out 'I'm the best man to play Oz the Wizard who families will love'. Also Empire's Ian Nathan points out that Franco 'has the hesitant smile of a conman needled by his conscience' and as much as I love James Franco, I can see his point. Although having said that, Franco was a good Oz and his smile can make a mysterious wizard become an endearing ordinary man of Oz any day.
Also another interesting cast member was Mila Kunis as The Good Witch; her past experience acting in Black Swan and Friends With Benefits was good but again not the kind of actor I would expect appearing in a family film but to my surprise this film actually made me like and appreciate her a bit more as an actress. I guess if anything this film taught us not to judge the excellence of an actor on their past films. The other two witches in the film played by Michelle Williams and Rachel Weisz were also very well performed.
Furthermore I appreciated the film in the sense that it was set to be different from the Wizard of Oz and the storyline allowed you to get lost in a film that couldn't be compared to the traditional Oz because it was almost completely different. Of course how could we not all love Sam Raimi, the director, who done an amazing job on the film.
Overall I found the film to be thoroughly enjoyable to watch, what more could we want? However with Oz I found the case to be more what less could we want? The beginning of the film, set out similar to the Wizard of Oz in black and white. It was nice to see that the older film, although different was enabled to be appreciated through this film. The authentic style and the old-fashioned carnival was marvellous. My only issue being that once in Oz things did not only turn to colour but became so bright that it was a little too much. The animations were ok, I wasn't too keen on the animated horses that looked like they had been snatched from an old Barbie film. I would have preferred things to be a little more dark; maybe a twist on the tale similar to Tim Burton's work on Alice in Wonderland. At times the film tumbled into a silly dance at a children's party in the sense that everyone seemed to be to much in costume and the set seemed to be so bright, colourful and child friendly that it felt extremely unrealistic and silly. Even the Wizard of Oz managed to make the munchkins fun and friendly without being blindingly bright and in-your-face. I may be using the wrong words but I can't quite put my finger on it, maybe it is the advances in cinema that make things appear differently but I found Oz to be too silly at times and even slightly patronizing. Rosie Bowen
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