Oz the Great and Powerful is more than good enough Yes or No



Oz the Great and Powerful is more than good enough Yes or No



Oz the Great and Powerful is more than good enough Yes or No

Oz the Great and Powerful. Say that name aloud and you will smile, I guarantee you: It will conjure up so many images, characters, actors, songs. Then hold that smile as long as you can, because you won't be doing much smiling at the movie called Oz the Great and Powerful, the so-called "prequel" to The Wizard of Oz from Disney Studios.

Presumably they were wary of messing with a solid gold classic, but while "Oz" does present a wide target for critics, they shouldn't have worried: director Sam Raimi ("The Amazing Spider-Man"; "The Evil Dead") takes care to honor the original in spirit and in style. It may be an impossible job, but he's surpassed reasonable expectations.

Oscar takes in the indigenous river fairies and sky-scraping flora with relative aplomb and soon has made friends — first with Theodora (Mila Kunis), a pretty, empty-vessel of a young witch who moves from telling Oscar that he has arrived in fulfillment of a renowned prophecy to suggesting that they reign together as king and queen of Oz faster than you can say Is she really wearing leather hot pants and stiletto-heeled spank-me boots with that red-velvet Edwardian hat? Together, the pair begin the journey down the yellow brick road to Oz, dancing by a night-time camp fire and rescuing Finley the flying monkey (also voiced by Zach Braff) from a cowardly lion along the way.

BUT THINGS ARE NOT AS THEY SEEM! Of course. Resourceful, dewy-eyed Glinda (Michelle Williams, again) is good, practices only vegan, non-violent magic, and reigns empathically over a kingdom of seamstresses, engineers, and pint-sized cabaret singers. She believes that Oscar is the wizard of her dead father’s prophecies. Believes, too, that together, using only

Will our flawed hero measure up to the fix in which he finds himself? And how, with nothing but an army of peaceniks to counter the witches' Winkies?

But to prove he's a wizard, he has to kill a certain wicked witch, along the way picking up a sidekick monkey that flies and talks in the voice of Zach Braff. I've seen few actors as unconvincing as James Franco when it comes to staring down and talking to a creature to be computer-generated later — and Franco doesn't just have to act opposite that insufferable monkey, but there's a sassy talking China Doll, too.