Oz: The Great and Powerful

Directed by Sam Raimi. Written by Mitchell Kapner and David Lindsay-Abaire. Starring James Franco (Oz), Mila Kunis (Theodore), Rachel Weisz (Evanora).

Bottom line: Oz: The Great and Powerful was an insulting but very interesting cinematic experience. Don't see this unless you have your critical hat on.
3/4



Oz: The Great and Powerful vexed me. I initially hated it. It is froth with sexism and racism and I didn’t understand why it was being well received. Was it the pretty graphics? I doubt it. I started writing this review with disgust but, the more I thought about it, the more it grew on me. Don’t get me wrong as I will explain later I think this is sexist and racist but I also think it is aware. That is, it a more complex movie than I expected and initially thought.

Oz: The Great and Powerful is the prequel, as I am sure you are aware, to The Wizard of Oz. We open, in a black and white, to a traveling circus where Oz (Franco), a talented but unfulfilled magician, performs. He enters the movie from behind a curtain with a music box in his hand. He hands it to his new, beautiful, dumb assistant explaining that it belonged to his war-hero grandmother. Zach Braff, Oz’s assistant, interrupts the seduction. We watch his unsuccessful stage show to establish him further as a fraud or, at least, not a real wizard (he can’t give a paralyzed girl that ability to walk).

Before getting blown to Oz (the place), we watch Oz (the man) speak to a former lover. He plays with a device (a circular ring of mirrors surrounded by images) which projects a basic animation of an elephant standing up on two legs. He tells of his desire for greatness. He wants to be someone like Thomas Edison. From the onset, Edison is placed on this pedestal and he develops as a recurring figure. This is a very interesting move by Oz, at least, with respect to Edison’s role in film history. He is a hardworking, ingenious man to whom we should all aspire to be. That's the type of thing I heard about him when I grew up. But, then I took a film history course…

By playing with this device, we assume that it is one of Edison's inventions. That seems like a reasonable thought. Is it? Negative, Ghost Rider. It looks a lot like a Zoetrope, though there are similar inventions, none of which were made by Edison.

The movie progresses and we come to a scene where the doll wants to be tucked in. Oz says," I am no wizard...but do you want to hear about a real wizard? The Wizard of Menlo Park-"

Imma let you finish but let me talk about film history a little bit.  

Edison financed the work of an inventor named Thomas Armat. In exchange for the financing, Armat's invention of a movie projector would be marketed as the "Edison Vitascope". Edison premiered the device and, before long, everyone used it (or something similar) to make and show movies. Edison was able to leverage his ownership to, essentially, control the film industry. He partnered with some other powerful film people (like George Eastman of Kodak) to dictate how film was to develop in America the being pure economic gain. Alright, don’t get me wrong capitalism is all fine and dandy but not when it is used like this.

Let me put it differently. Are you familiar with Comcast? Do you like Comcast? I don't and I don't think anybody really does. Unfortunately, there isn't really any other choice for Internet. That's why they can charge really high rates and provide minimal services. Do I sound paranoid? I certainly hope not, I am just speaking from personal experience. Anyway, think about a company like that which can control an industry more completely, in a time before anti-trust laws. That's the company Edison formed and he used it for maximum profit. I can go deeper into examples of how they controlled the film market (leave me a comment if you want more and I will provide sources too) but, let me summarize for the sake of our discussion. Edison was not the hero of an inventor that Oz: The Great and Powerful suggests: he was a ruthless, greedy businessman.

Oz is, as I mentioned above, a talented magician. But when he gets to Oz and claims to be a real wizard, he is reduced to a fraud. He uses the smoke and mirrors technology of Edison to build this persona of greatness.  By all accounts, to everyone in Oz, he is what he claims; a hero, an inventor, a veritable Edison. This holds through even to The Wizard of Oz.

Given the history of Edison, why would Sam Raimi make this parallel? This is the director of the original Evil Dead and Drag Me to Hell we’re talking about. I can’t believe that this man would make such a gross error of film history. So, it’s more likely the case that he is winking at us. Despite the fact that James Franco’s Oz is funny, attractive, a good man (deep down), consider the Oz we meet in The Wizard of Oz. He is an old, fat cowardly liar. Who in their right mind would want to be him? Raimi is subtly connecting the two characters and linking it to Edison.

My only objection to this parallel is that Oz never gets his comeuppance. It’s disappointing. I’m not saying that every character should be punished for wrongs or that the protagonist should be infallible but this movie leaves is a bad taste in my mouth. After all, this was a movie market towards families. To what extent can or should the director expect his message to be heard? I haven’t mentioned the racism or sexism in this movie, the chief source of my objections.

Oz (the man) is blown into Oz (the place) after some basic character establishment: he is an attractive womanizer who wants to be great. We also hear that he is, deep-down, a good man but only time will tell.

Once he crashes into Technicolor, Oz meets a pretty witch named Theodore (Kunis). The two walk and talk and escape some flying baboons. They spend the night in the woods. Oz wastes no time in seducing her; he produces the same music box and the same story about his grandmother which he gave and told his assistant. “No one has ever given me a gift before…” she says. “No one has ever asked me to dance before…” she says. “No one has ever kissed me before…” she says. The camera tilts up to the stars and we fade into the night as the two continue to dance.

Oz, unlike the smitten Theodore, doesn’t have any intention on staying with her or loving her (other than physically). He just wants the gold and power of becoming the King of Emerald City. But, unfortunately for him, to become the king he must fulfill the prophecy by killing the Wicked Witch, something Theodore and her sister are unable to do. Despite the fact that these two witches have been ruling for who knows how long, they need the white man to fulfill this prophecy.

Theodore is eventually clued in on the fact that he took advantage of her and she turns into a villain. This is pretty darn understandable to me. I will also note that he never once apologizes to her.
Oz meets the wicked witch, who turns out to be Glenda the Good: a beautiful, powerful, blonde witch. She follows in line with the other strong female characters of this movie; she requires the authority of the white male to defeat the real evil witch.

Along the way, Oz visits China Town and meets a broken doll. After gluing her legs back together, the little girl screams and pouts until the reluctant Oz allows her to join the company. What does this teach the little girls in the audience? If you throw a temper tantrum, as long as it is cute, it is ok and you’ll get what you want.

All of the women are capable. They are all on top of their stuff but they cannot actually do anything. Glenda at one point tells Oz to simply shut up. She has everything worked out she just needs the Oz figurehead.

Alongside these women, Oz has two black characters and a monkey. The one character is a feisty midget who works as the trumpet player for the city. When he came on screen I thought, who is this, Samuel L. Jackson from Django Unchained? He plays a really racist jive-talking servant. It was ok (or more ok) in Django Unchained because it was for the sake of irony but, here, it is simply offensive. The other black character is an old, wise tinkerer. They were trying to go for a Morgan Freeman type of thing but coupled with the cheeky trumpet player, it is cheap at best. Last but not least is the monkey. He is a flying monkey (not to be confused with the villainous flying baboons) in a bell-hop outfit. After Oz saves him from a lion, he pledges his life to service in return. At one point, the two are walking to fight the evil witch. Oz says, “…I’m going to get all the gold…and we’ll get you something like a bunch of bananas.” “Bananas,” the monkey replies, “You’re just saying that because I’m a monkey. That is playing to stereotypes and that is wrong…it’s true but that doesn’t make it any less wrong.”

It would’ve been bad enough if Oz just makes the joke which, as the monkey explains, is playing into stereotypes but to have the reply be this makes the situation worse. The movie is saying, “Stereotypes are bad…but they’re true!” What year is this again?

Overall, Oz: The Great and Powerful is a bizarre movie. It is not good but, if you watch it with your critical hat on, I might say it is worth an hour and a half of your time (with, of course, a thorough discussion with friends afterward). I wouldn’t recommend this to families unless you want to have the “this is why racism and sexism is bad” talk. I wouldn’t really recommend this to anyone unless they want to think and discuss it.

Finishing up this review leaves me at a quandary. On one hand, I found this to be a terrible movie so I'd give it .5/4. On the other hand, digging through my film history books to confirm my suspicions about Edison made this one of the most fun movies I've seen in a while so I'd like to give it a 3/4. I am leaning towards a 3 because this is a tome, like many great movies, which give the viewer the opportunity to question and dig deeper and to think.