theNomad’s review published on Letterboxd:
"Not so great and powerful afterall..."
Evanora (Rachel Weisz)
Another stinker in the ever growing list of woeful attempts by Disney to recapture the magnificence of MGM's musical version of the 'Wizard of Oz'. Sam Raimi's 'Oz: The Great and Powerful' is a badly scripted homage/prequel. And is set years before Dorothy crash landed her house there, it details how the great wizard ended up in the merry old land of Oz.
Its no secret the once legendary director Sam Raimi's been losing his mojo and cool of late. I'd guess its partially due to a few sub par projects hes chosen to make ('Spidey 3' felt rushed and wasn't the fitting end to his trilogy fans had hoped for, while 'Drag Me to Hell' felt soulless). Also with his increased budgets, the poor guys no doubt lost his unique creative control on his own films, to the evil corporate studios. So much is wrong with the script. it just felt like badly cobbled together fluff, solely to get the viewer to the next CGI special effects laden action moment, and it must be said they aren't all that special anyway.
James Franco (who I like in stuff like 'Freaks N Geeks' and 'Pineapple Express') just doesn't cut it in big leads. I'm not saying hes bad just miscast as the con artist magician Oz. Sure it didn't help he shared most screen time with two animated characters, an agreeably cute flying butler chimp and the 'please smash her already' China Girl, who seemed like an outtake from a Shrek movie. The three witches faired much better, though it was odd seeing the usually drop dead gorgeous Mila Kunis looking ugly. Danny Elfmans score was also pretty faultless. Guess overall it could have been worse, but for its huge budget and the talent involved it should have been much better.
[PRFR: Personal Reasons For Remembering]
The retro titles that worked like an homage to L Frank Baums original silent Oz productions. And Mila Kunis boobs... not that she showed them during this, its a family movie after all. But while bored my mind wandered to her kinky role in 'Black Swan'.