But that's not the point. So Oz is the story of the wizard of Oz before he became the wizard of Oz. Sounds interesting enough. Except it's also a PG story, and is frankly quite screwy in a lot of ways. I've never actually read the novels about Oz, but watching the film, it really seems like it's something someone came up with while on an acid trip.
So what is Oz about? It's the story of 3 women really. One's good, one's evil and the last is a yandere. So these 3 women are the pivots around which our central character, Oz, revolves around. One wants to be Queen, the other wants to be loved and the last wants peace and harmony for everyone. Guess which one is the good one.
And then Oz comes into the picture. At the start, he's a conniving playboy shyster who basically bites off more than he can chew and ends up flying away in a hot air balloon, only to be transported via tornado into the land of Oz. And much like his predecessor (or in this case, it's more like successor?) Oz gathers together a motley crew of adventurers to fight against the evil witch. Sadly, Oz couldn't really find any ruby shoes that would fit him so he has to fight with his what he likes to call prestidigitation. Or what other people like to call playing dirty.
At its heart, it's really a simplistic story that feels like Disney really really should animated it and added it as one of their princess films, instead of making it a live-action movie. The colors are too bright and sort of jarring at times for a live-action film.
In the end, lots of special effects; including a force-lightning scene from the evil Witch, but lack of substance makes this a fairly mediocre film. I wouldn't say it's horrible because frankly, I've watched a lot lot worse films than this. James Franco does play a fairly convincing role as a weaselly shyster though since everytime he made that grimace-smile of his, I wanted to punch him in the face. Which I think was the whole point of that smile.
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