Watch Oz the Great and Powerful Online Even the Wicked Witch of the West, when she’s finally revealed in all her green-skinned glory, has the smooth computerized features of a video game villain. The “Oz” stories are fantasies but homespun and uniquely American; they connect with us through Baum’s cracker-b
Watch Oz the Great and Powerful Online It’s worth reflecting, for a moment, on what makes 1939’s “The Wizard of Oz” not just a great movie but an iconic experience and pop touchstone. It got mixed reviews in 1939, but my generation discovered the film on TV after family gatherings, when the grown-ups were sleeping off the tryptophan, and it has since rolled out across VHS and DVD as a childhood rite of passage. There are those catchy songs, of course, and a villainess that perches on the edge of nightmare. The winged monkeys go over that edge — they’re Hieronymus Bosch for kiddies. But it’s Dorothy who makes “Wizard” stick, or, rather, the profound emotional yearning for a home beyond the rainbow conveyed by the young Judy Garland, who herself had lost her bearings in the Oz of MGM. “The Wizard of Oz” works because we can feel it.
Which is precisely what’s missing from “Oz the Great and Powerful”: that sense of emotional journey. The new film comes at us with all the 21st-century bells and whistles — computer-generated effects, 3-D visuals — and the absurdly talented Sam Raimi (the “Evil Dead” and “Spider-Man” trilogies) behind the camera. An unofficial prequel to “The Wizard of Oz,” it has a sly but gracious reverence for the fantasy world created by L. Frank Baum, and it gets as close to the 1939 movie as lawyers for current copyright holder Warner Bros. will allow. Even the colors glow with the hyperreal tones of classic three-strip Technicolor.
But, alas, James Franco has been cast in the lead role of Oscar Diggs, the tent-show magician from Kansas who becomes — not at all convincingly until the very end — the wonderful Wizard of Oz. Franco is, frankly, too callow, too feckless, too much the dude for this role. Johnny Depp was a rumored lead at one point, but that would have brought the movie even closer than it already is to Tim Burton’s 2010 “Alice in Wonderland,” an eye-popping CGI bore. Robert Downey Jr. was another candidate, and that might have been better — he might have anchored the role in both wit and hurt.
But Franco’s Oz is required to be a jerk for most of the film’s 130 minutes, and it wears you out. There are still some wonderful things in Watch Oz the Great and Powerful Online “Oz the Great and Powerful,” and one of them is the opening section, set in 1905 Kansas — a classic, black-and-white, 4:3-aspect-ratio Kansas much like the beginning of the 1939 movie. Once the tornado whisks the hero by balloon to Oz, the colors bleed in and the screen magically widens, but the landscapes have the craggy, familiar “awesomeness” of every other computer-generated fantasy film these days. We’ve been here before, and too recently.
Oz the Great and Powerful
Watch Oz the Great and Powerful Online
As a prequel of sorts to the beloved Judy Garland-starring The Wizard
of Oz, designated by the Library of Congress as the most-watched film
ever, this version certainly has giant shoes to fill. Copyright issues
prevent Oz the Great and Powerful from mentioning signature moments from
the 1939 film, such as Dorothy's iconic ruby slippers, but the new
movie does feature munchkins, a magician James Franco and a trio of
witches Mila Kunis, Rachel Weisz and Michelle Williams as it fills us in
on how the world order Dorothy discovered came into being.
Sometimes sweet, sometimes scary, sometimes sour, Oz the Great and Powerful is a film that doesn't know its own mind. A partially effective jumble whose Watch Oz the Great and Powerful Online elements clash rather than cohere, this solid but not spectacular effort stubbornly refuses to catch fire until it's almost too late.
Watch Oz the Great and Powerful Online As directed by Sam Raimi, who departed from his horror film roots (The Evil Dead) to turn out the high-grossing, family-friendly Spider-Man trilogy, Oz exhibits some of the same tonal duality that marks its maker's career. Despite the considerable amount of time, effort and cash invested in it, this film remains an unfocused fairy tale with the nasty bits left in, which is not always a good idea.
REVIEWS: More reviews from the Times
What Oz does do well, and this has proved Watch Oz the Great and Powerful Online to be no easy task, is effectively use its 3-D format. With Robert Stromberg as production designer and Peter Deming as cinematographer, this film succeeds in making the Land of Oz look completely magical and strange. Which it very much needs to do to compensate for acting and writing that veer toward the ordinary more than they should.
Watch Oz the Great and Powerful Online As written by Mitchell Kapner and David Lindsay-Abaire, this Oz begins, like the Garland classic, in Kansas in black and white. The year this time is 1905 and the setting is the rundown Baum Bros. Circus (a nod to L. Frank Baum, who wrote the original Oz novels). In dusty tents, a magician named Oscar Diggs (Franco) holds forth amid the alter egos of characters he will later meet in Oz.
Though he bills himself as Oz the Great and Powerful, Oscar Diggs is neither. Franco's portrayal calls to mind the actor's self-satisfied turn as host of the Academy Awards, giving the magician a callow, pleased-with-himself aura (he is accurately described later in the film Watch Oz the Great and Powerful Online as selfish, slightly egotistical and a fibber). While having Franco start out this way is intentional, the actor is frankly too adept at being irritating, so much so that his presence makes it harder to enjoy the rest of the movie.
Watch Oz the Great and Powerful Online A practiced seducer of women, Oscar has no use for the friendship of his assistant Frank (Zach Braff) and doesn't know what to say when a young teenager in a wheelchair (Joey King) asks during his magic show if he can make her walk again. When old flame Annie (Williams) tells him she's going to be married to someone else, he mocks her notions of probity. He doesn't want to be a good man, he says, but a great one — a combination of Harry Houdini and Thomas Edison all rolled into one. He doesn't know he's about to get his chance.
As in the 1939 original, a tornado seems the only mode of transport from Kansas to the magical kingdom, as Oscar is carried in by a hot air balloon. And Watch Oz the Great and Powerful Online magical this land certainly is, with unusual flowers opening in glorious profusion and otherworldly pink butterflies filling the air. It is quite a 3-D sight, and it needs to be to keep us involved while the story finds its legs.
Watch Oz the Great and Powerful Online Oscar's first order of business is rescuing Finley, a flying talking monkey in a bellhop's uniform and cap (Braff again) who becomes the newcomer's sidekick and confidant, a role news reports suggest was beefed up to help Franco's low likability quotient.
Next we encounter naive witch Theodora (Kunis), who is convinced that the magician is the prophesied wizard with great powers who has been expected to show up and free the land from the tyranny of the wicked witch.
The man himself is not so sure, but he's interested in the treasure that goes with the job. After meeting the more worldly Evanora (Weisz) and then the glowing blond Glinda (Williams again), Oscar is convinced he has to fake being a real wizard until the film reveals which of the trio is the wicked witch, a bogus dilemma that confuses rather than helps the plot.
This may sound straightforward on paper, but the film's pokey plot advances in fits and starts. There are moments of enchantment, as when Oscar comes across tiny, made-of-porcelain China Girl (King again). And there are moments of nastiness, like attacks by flying baboons with sharp fangs and dispositions to match, the kind of unnerving episodes even nominal family films now feel compelled to include.
As the story's conclusion looms and Oscar is allowed to be more likable, the whole project gets a new lease on life. The moral here is that we are capable of more than we know, so how can we not be won over — especially if munchkins are involved? But Oz the Great and Powerful is a rougher slog getting there than it needs to be.
Sometimes sweet, sometimes scary, sometimes sour, Oz the Great and Powerful is a film that doesn't know its own mind. A partially effective jumble whose Watch Oz the Great and Powerful Online elements clash rather than cohere, this solid but not spectacular effort stubbornly refuses to catch fire until it's almost too late.
Watch Oz the Great and Powerful Online As directed by Sam Raimi, who departed from his horror film roots (The Evil Dead) to turn out the high-grossing, family-friendly Spider-Man trilogy, Oz exhibits some of the same tonal duality that marks its maker's career. Despite the considerable amount of time, effort and cash invested in it, this film remains an unfocused fairy tale with the nasty bits left in, which is not always a good idea.
REVIEWS: More reviews from the Times
What Oz does do well, and this has proved Watch Oz the Great and Powerful Online to be no easy task, is effectively use its 3-D format. With Robert Stromberg as production designer and Peter Deming as cinematographer, this film succeeds in making the Land of Oz look completely magical and strange. Which it very much needs to do to compensate for acting and writing that veer toward the ordinary more than they should.
Watch Oz the Great and Powerful Online As written by Mitchell Kapner and David Lindsay-Abaire, this Oz begins, like the Garland classic, in Kansas in black and white. The year this time is 1905 and the setting is the rundown Baum Bros. Circus (a nod to L. Frank Baum, who wrote the original Oz novels). In dusty tents, a magician named Oscar Diggs (Franco) holds forth amid the alter egos of characters he will later meet in Oz.
Though he bills himself as Oz the Great and Powerful, Oscar Diggs is neither. Franco's portrayal calls to mind the actor's self-satisfied turn as host of the Academy Awards, giving the magician a callow, pleased-with-himself aura (he is accurately described later in the film Watch Oz the Great and Powerful Online as selfish, slightly egotistical and a fibber). While having Franco start out this way is intentional, the actor is frankly too adept at being irritating, so much so that his presence makes it harder to enjoy the rest of the movie.
Watch Oz the Great and Powerful Online A practiced seducer of women, Oscar has no use for the friendship of his assistant Frank (Zach Braff) and doesn't know what to say when a young teenager in a wheelchair (Joey King) asks during his magic show if he can make her walk again. When old flame Annie (Williams) tells him she's going to be married to someone else, he mocks her notions of probity. He doesn't want to be a good man, he says, but a great one — a combination of Harry Houdini and Thomas Edison all rolled into one. He doesn't know he's about to get his chance.
As in the 1939 original, a tornado seems the only mode of transport from Kansas to the magical kingdom, as Oscar is carried in by a hot air balloon. And Watch Oz the Great and Powerful Online magical this land certainly is, with unusual flowers opening in glorious profusion and otherworldly pink butterflies filling the air. It is quite a 3-D sight, and it needs to be to keep us involved while the story finds its legs.
Watch Oz the Great and Powerful Online Oscar's first order of business is rescuing Finley, a flying talking monkey in a bellhop's uniform and cap (Braff again) who becomes the newcomer's sidekick and confidant, a role news reports suggest was beefed up to help Franco's low likability quotient.
Next we encounter naive witch Theodora (Kunis), who is convinced that the magician is the prophesied wizard with great powers who has been expected to show up and free the land from the tyranny of the wicked witch.
The man himself is not so sure, but he's interested in the treasure that goes with the job. After meeting the more worldly Evanora (Weisz) and then the glowing blond Glinda (Williams again), Oscar is convinced he has to fake being a real wizard until the film reveals which of the trio is the wicked witch, a bogus dilemma that confuses rather than helps the plot.
This may sound straightforward on paper, but the film's pokey plot advances in fits and starts. There are moments of enchantment, as when Oscar comes across tiny, made-of-porcelain China Girl (King again). And there are moments of nastiness, like attacks by flying baboons with sharp fangs and dispositions to match, the kind of unnerving episodes even nominal family films now feel compelled to include.
As the story's conclusion looms and Oscar is allowed to be more likable, the whole project gets a new lease on life. The moral here is that we are capable of more than we know, so how can we not be won over — especially if munchkins are involved? But Oz the Great and Powerful is a rougher slog getting there than it needs to be.
