Oz The Great & Powerful - "I might not actually be a wizard..."
You might not be a good actor either James or at least in this role. You are reminiscent of Hayden Christensen in the Star Wars Prequels & in similar territory when you think about it. Sam Raimi takes a beloved piece of art loved by generations of people and George Lucasifies it by replacing every physical set with a CGI world, bad acting & a worse plot. Yes this isn't a remake it's a prequel, just like the Phantom Menace. It's very unlike Disney to create a children's film with no subtle adult content or anything to keep the interests of anyone over the age of 15, but this is through and through a children's film & it's awful. The acting on behalf of almost everyone is wooden and uninspired, James Franco as Oz was a really poor choice of casting, if both Robert Downey Jr. & Johnny Depp pass on it, shelve the project and burn the script.
The script is horrendous, not an ounce of cohesive dialogue in sight, which would be fine if there was Michael Bay levels of action but there is not, in fact there isn't any action at all, not from the witches not from Oz & not from the flying monkeys. The witches were so boring and dull to watch, Michelle Williams as Glinda was all sugar and no spice, she's irritating and not important to the storyline at all and displays no sort of power in the film either and treats her precious wand as a child's toy to be played with. Mila Kunis as Theodora was atrocious, when she makes her transformation in the film it is comical rather than scary, in no universe does she even come close to Margaret Hamilton in "The Wizard of Oz". Her makeup looks like it's CGI rather than physical and her cackling laugh made me want to gag. The only positives of casting Mila Kunis was one shot of her ass and whoever the lucky make-up person was that got to paint her tits green. Rachel Weisz is the only actress to somewhat resemble a witch, her performance is fine and fine is the best you'll get in this seemingly 6 hour long film.
The production was a slap in the face to Victor Fleming who successfully transported us to the wonderful world of Oz in 1939 with gorgeous physical sets, vibrant colours, amazing make-up, adorable songs & an impressive cast. Sam Raimi incorporates the use of multiple green screens to create Oz and it looks ugly and fake. The CGI of the little China Girl is cringe worthy as you can clearly see that whenever Oz is handling her he's not actually gripping anything. Also at no point did I believe Oz was actually on a yellow brick road. This production wouldn't be complete without a faithful Jar Jar Binks to accompany Oz on his very boring journey. Zach Braff motion captures and voices the character of Finlay a flying monkey wearing a bell-hop costume, irritating is an understatement, useless is a better word as he serves absolutely no purpose in the film. In fact I wouldn't be surprised if he was cast purely so they could market this pile of shit to his million Facebook followers. Disney really tried to hammer the anti-violence message into the audiences head which explains the complete lack of action resulting in zero entertainment. Proceed with extreme caution, impossible to recommend. 1/5
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