Oz the Great and Powerful

The Wizard of Oz has been re-made, sequel-ed, prequel-ed, adapted, rebooted, re-imagined and in general just fucked with so often that it’s hard to tell exactly how much it being done one more time matters.  Almost none of the 500 or so Oz rip-offs are anywhere near the original in quality, so adding another to the pile doesn’t really do anything to change the image of ‘timeless classic VS endless stream of derivative crap.’  Still, Sam Raimi and Disney have made it clear that they intend Oz the Great and Powerful to be a direct successor to the 1939 film.  They’ve kindly made that point even more clear by including as many nods and allusions to the original as possible in the movie itself and by green-lighting the sequel to the prequel as soon as they made sure they could turn a profit.  Seeing as how Disney is so willing to take that extra step and directly marry themselves to the iconic film, proving that they are the most gold-diggingest bitches in all of Hollywood, how angry are we supposed to be at how stupid this movie was?

Obviously in the grand scheme of things we shouldn’t let something like a silly prequel upset us.  But since that’s not how people work and it doesn’t make for a good article, I’m going to say Oz the Great and Powerful should make you at least seven out of ten Angrys.  There is no one area in which this film is actually good.  Furthermore, it’s specifically bad in almost every department.  And while lots of movies are bad, Oz the Great is so predictably and avoidably poorly-made that you can’t help but feel cheated by it – not just because it’s so lazily put-together, but because it wants so much credit just for sharing a name with something much better than it is.

If money weren’t a factor and Disney truly just wanted to make a great product, they would be having some pretty serious talks with the producers of Oz the Great and Powerful right now.  They would bring up things like not hiring people whose best credit so far is ‘The Whole Nine Yards’ to write your tent-pole of a film.  They would talk about not making movies that are 95% greenscreen – they would tell them to either go the distance and make it an animated movie or to take the time to use real sets because people are sick of watching actors pretend to react incredulously to an empty room or talk to a tennis ball on a stick like it’s a real person.  And it would be really awkward in that room because goddamnit guys, didn’t we just go over all this?

The worst part about Oz the Great and Powerful is that it tries to tie itself into a piece of film history, just to soak up that extra little bit of cash.  The theatre I went to was full of grandparents who clearly never go to the movies.  They hadn’t been in so long that 3D glasses were brand new to them.  So not only had they not been since around 2003, but they hadn’t been since like the 80’s when they tried to make that shit work the first time.  But they cancelled their Golden Coral reservations and picked their grandchildren up from school to take them to see the origins of a story they grew up loving.  And they hated it.  So did their grandkids.  I think I saw at least ten children realize for the first time that some movies suck.  And all of this was over some shitty prequel to a movie so beloved it dragged people out of movie-watching retirement just to see it.

Aside from all the general sucking this movie does, it specifically sucks at resembling or capturing the feel of the original in any meaningful way.  You might recognize that as the one real job that it had.  If all the bad acting and stupid plot and shitty-looking effects and the Zach Braff could’ve struck the audience with even a shade of nostalgia over the original, it would’ve at least validated its existence, if not its financial success.  The last true Disney (non-Pixar, non-Marvel) movie to actually do its job was the original Pirates of the Caribbean in 2003, so it’s not that surprising that they failed here as well.  Disney is still a big name in the movie industry, mostly because they own everything, but they haven’t been the standard since at least the mid-90’s.  Nothing about Oz the Great and Powerful is going to change that.  Nothing about the sequel will either.  Look forward to wondering why people hate it so much more when they both look like shit. – DT