Oz the Great and Powerful: The title is a bit of an oversell

While director Sam Raimi (Spider-Man, The Evil Dead) does a good job of making the world of Oz look fantastical and dreamlike in Oz the Great and Powerful, the prequel is a bit more style than substance, ultimately lacking purpose. (And with a $200 million budget, you’d think that would be high on the list of priorities.) Raimi seems to think that letting James Franco, who plays Oscar “Oz” Diggs, a Kansas carnival magician who gets in a bit of trouble after seducing the strong man’s girlfriend, indulge himself with a whimsical performance is reason enough to revisit the 1939 classic.

Franco hams it up as Oz, playing him as a half-baked hooligan who hijacks a hot air balloon and winds up in Oz. He initially meets two beautiful witches — Theodora (Mila Kunis) and her sister Evanora (Rachel Weisz) — and is originally smitten before the beautiful Glinda (Michelle Williams) tells him that they’re bad news and that he must play the role of a wizard in order to save her kingdom. Powerless and reluctant to put himself in such a dangerous position, Oz eventually assembles a motley crew of cohorts, including Finley the Flying Monkey (Zach Braff) and China Girl (Joey King). While Raimi undoubtedly intended the film’s stilted dialogue to mimic the original film’s script, Franco and crew struggle to make their characters into ones worth rooting for. In the end, all the laughs and joy come from smart aleck Finley.

This story is consistent with the original (perhaps too consistent) and Raimi’s use of black and white in the opening scenes provides a nice homage to the film’s predecessor as well. In the end though, like “Oz” Diggs, it all turns out to be a little more 3-D smoke and mirrors than classic movie magic.