Sam Raimi’s Wizard of Oz prequel is garish yet free of personality. Attempting to recreate the baffling success of Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland, Disney tackle yet another popular and fantastical series but much like Burton’s aforementioned movie this is a loud and rather obnoxious take on a much loved fantasy universe.

It begins well enough with a smartly designed credit sequence and black and white prologue that introduces the audience to Oz, a womanising magician and would-be saviour of L. Frank Baum’s fantasy land. The opening is both a playful homage to the original classic film as well as economically establishing the smarmy self-centred ‘hero’. Unfortunately, as soon as the film changes aspect ratio and morphs into glorious eye-popping…

The latest foray into the land of Oz following the ground-breaking and timeless The Wizard of Oz (and the forgettable sequel Return to Oz) should've been an adaptation of the novel Wicked instead of this limp and clichéd mess of a story. I did my best to put my expectations and wishes to the side and enjoy it as a fun piece of entertainment. It's clearly a cash grab and an attempt at a new franchise, but I can enjoy these types of films if it feels like they put some thought and effort into it. They basically put a throwaway story into a beautiful-looking and well-thought out world.

Oz: The Great and Powerful boasts some astoundingly beautiful visuals. The…

65/100

"The Wizard of Oz was intended to hit the same audience as Snow White and won't fail for lack of trying. It has dwarfs, music, Technicolor, freak characters and Judy Garland. It can't be expected to have a sense of humor as well—and as for the light touch of fantasy, it weighs like a pound of fruitcake soaking wet." — Otis Ferguson, The New Republic, 1939.

That's what you all sound like.

Not that I make any great claims for this sometimes labored prequel, or anticipate that it'll become a beloved classic decades from now. It has major problems, the most significant being that one of the three witches was badly miscast—Kunis just can't pull off a wholly stylized…

If you were afraid of Sam Raimi's Oz: The Great and Powerful becoming a bland corporate affair, well you're only half right. This film is still a corporate affair, but thankfully Raimi brings enough of his fun and campy style to the film that it becomes an enjoyable corporate affair that doesn't fall to the same betrayals that Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland did.

Oz isn't a terribly great film, but it's competent enough to be enjoyable. There's not a lot to talk about here on either end of both good and bad, so I'll just sum up the basics:

The visuals are easily the highlight of this film. The film is practically eye candy, and it's also one of…

I have expressed my feelings once or twice about The Wizard of Oz, especially here. I am not exaggerating when I say that The Wizard of Oz was once my favorite movie of all time. I had entire rooms designated to all of my memorabilia, snow globes with music box tunes of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow," books, figures, pillows, posters, the works. I even had this long standing prejudice against Gone with the Wind because it beat out The Wizard of Oz at the Academy Awards over 70 years ago.. For my 16th birthday I traveled to Toronto to see a stage production of The Wizard of Oz with Eartha Kitt and Mickey Rooney and I cried as soon as…