Oz The Great and Powerful
(2013)
At what point was Oz was
doomed to failure? Was it when Disney gave the green light, with the set aim of
cooking up another $1bn+ Alice in
Wonderland monster? When Sam Raimi came on-board, putting back in the box
all the energy and twisted sense of fun that erupted forth in Drag Me to Hell? Or when James Franco
was confirmed as the lead, a media polymath of mediocre abilities and even less
charisma?
Franco certainly stands out for bringing nothing to the
table aside from that insincere, all-purpose grin of his. He’s horribly
miscast, presumably settled on by Raimi as a distant third of fourth choice due
to their Spider-man association.
Oscar Zoroaster Phadrig Isaac Norman Henkel Emmannuel Ambroise Diggs is
introduced as a philandering, con-man stage magician. He’s an entirely
self-serving individual and so needs an actor of some warmth and presence to
portray him. How else is the audience to get behind him, no matter what? If
Johnny Depp (mooted) might have been an obvious and distracting pick (break out
the face paint, Johnny!), Robert Downey Jr. would have been perfect; it’s easy
to hear him delivering (generally unmemorable) Franco’s dialogue and injecting
his cadence and sparkle into it. Not that Downey Jr. should have wasted his
energies on a project so uninspired. One might argue that Franco’s a good fit,
a strip of blandness at the movie’s core.
But, when you hear Bruce Campbell giving it his all in his
par for the course Raimi cameo, it’s a reminder of the knock-about energy and
fun Oz is so lacking in every
department. Raimi’s casting is as dull as it gets. Rachel Weisz lacks the
necessary gusto and malevolence as Evanora; you barely remember her after the
movie is over, except in her failure to carry her voice during speeches.
Charlize Theron made a much better evil witch/queen type in last year’s Snow White and the Huntsman. If Weisz is
forgettable, Mila Kunis makes an impression for all the wrong reasons. She has
the tone and manner of a discontented teenager, and carries this on past her
green-skinned transformation. She brings no weight, bearing or vocal control,
no (perhaps I should hesitate to say this, as it’s usually used to insult a
performance) theatricality.
That leaves Michelle Williams, who is fine as Glinda the
Good Witch; she is suitably aglow with beneficence. Oz’s companions, Zach
Braff’s cheeky monkey and Joey King’s heartstrings-tugging China Girl are
reasonable as comic relief and nurturing Oz’s good side respectively. But they
also further emphasise just how derivative this already derivative and
uninvolving screenplay is. About the only arresting aspect is purely visual;
Robert Stromberg’s production design (he previously contributed to Avatar and Alice in Wonderland). But even this alternates between
rainbow-coloured extravagance and green screen flatness (perhaps a consequence
of shooting in 3D; Raimi surprisingly resists the urge to indulge in the baser
possibilities of the format, excepting a moment when a key character plunges
headlong toward the camera).
Mitchel Kapner and David Lindsay-Abaire are the credited
writers, the latter brought on as development continued. With The Whole Nine Yards and its sequel to
his credit, Kapner isn’t perhaps the most illustrious in the field.
Lindsay-Abaire worked on Inkheart, Rabbit Hole, and Rise of the Guardians, so probably seemed like a natural fit. But
Raimi ends up with little more than a mishmash of the MGM musical The Wizard of Oz and the plot beats of Disney’s
recent Alice. With a male protagonist
(this was important, apparently). Raimi begins in sepia, 1:66:1 frame,
intentionally evoking the first Oz movie incarnation, and immediately administers
dual roles to key cast members (Williams is Annie, mother of a child Oz has
all-but abandoned, Braff is his devoted but ill-treated assistant Frank and
King a girl in a wheelchair requesting that Oz heals her).
This might be regarded as homage but the tepid quality
instead merely ensures recognition that there’s no stepping out from under the
enormous shadow of Judy Garland et al. So the Wicked Witch of the West is
cackling and green rides a broom. And the magician is given travelling
companions, but rather lacklustre ones.
Structurally, Oz walks
the same path as Alice in Wonderland.
Our hero/heroine encounters the villain(ness) early on and later, after he/she
meets the good queen/witch, leads an army into battle to expel the darkness
veiling the land. There’s no rigour to the plotting; no surprise or twists and
turns. It follows an entirely predictable, “this happens and then this happens”
path.
Not least of which is the discovery of the essential
goodness of Oz, replete with the expected moments of doubt (has he fled like a
coward after all?). What’s the message with Oz
anyway? Trickery and deceit are okay if they are put to a worthy end? The
thought occurred that this might parallel the justification of the past decade
or so of US foreign policy (Raimi tends to the conservative, after all),
although that would require a tacit acknowledgement that overtures of
allegiances were in due course broken (Theodora) and provoked the situation.
Indeed, Oz orchestrates a propaganda war (magic tricks and illusions) in order
to strike the hardest blow against his enemy.
I’m sure it’s a broken-backed reading, but it’s a
pronouncement against Raimi’s slack grip on the material that my mind wandered there.
Only during Oz’s climactic confrontation does the movie click into gear, such
that antithetical notion of science outmatching (real) magic is rendered almost
believable (it’s one of the many problems of the film that the powers of the
witches are so ill-defined).
Sam Raimi hasn’t underwhelmed like this since For Love of the Game, a movie taken on
out of the desire to attain some commercial clout. Possibly his thinking here
was along similar lines. Drag Me to Hell
was a disappointment at the box office, and he had walked away from Spider-man 4. So he made something
utterly indistinct authorially. Oz
was no flop, but at half a billion worldwide it was far from another Alice. Given the deficiencies of that
film did nothing to deter audiences, I’d come back to the casting as Oz’s greatest error. Like it or not, Tim
Burton made sure everyone in his movie was memorable; Raimi did precisely the
opposite. And unlike Alice (not
exactly demanding a follow-up, whereas Oz is designed exactly for
continuations), a sequel must look doubtful at the moment unless the costs are
kept down (of course, a script is “in development” but one always is). Raimi
should just go and make Evil Dead IV.
**1/2