"Is there a problem with that?"
"Yes."
Sam Raimi delivers a huge-scale and expensive-looking spectacle with this 2013 take on the Oz origin story. Thankfully, the film gets much better as it goes along, which comes as a great relief, as the opening scenes in Kansas and then Oz do not play well. The move from black-and-white to stylised, saturated widescreen colour works well, and throughout the use of 3D is quite stunning. There are sufficient enjoyable well-placed nods to Victor Fleming's film, and as a prequel the film works very well. As the sideshow conjuror Oz, James Franco plays James Franco, never an actor for displaying subtle shifts and detail, but here he manages the transition from conman to hero appropriately, and as for the three witches, Michelle Williams delights, Rachel Weisz oozes malevolence well, and Mila Kunis - with perhaps the biggest character arc of all - only misses the mark occasionally in her full transition to green-skinned revenger. The China Girl is a fantastically-realised creation, the Zach Braff-voiced monkey sidekick is fun, and the film is visually rich and detailed. Danny Elfman provides another superb score, and Raimi marshals both big and small-scale moments effectively. Like the Star Wars prequels, this should be approached as a film for children (who, in the audience, laughed, cowered and seemed to enjoy the ride) and as such succeeds well, once its initial uncertainty is overcome.
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