Oz The Great and Powerful

There are a few films that I don't believe anyone is ever going to have the guts to remake. Citizen Kane for one. Casablanca is another (though there was an attempt at making a TV series out of it in the 80's).  I would add almost anything by Stanley Kubrick, though again a TV mini-series was made of the Shining.  In fairness this was a try at being truer to the Stephan King source material than Kubrick had been.  Gus Van Sant made an ill advised shot for shot remake of Psycho in 1998, which was almost universally panned.  We may do prequels or sequels or spin offs focusing on once minor players, but rightly or wrongly certain films defy duplication because of their iconic stature.  And even attempting an origin story or sequel can be dicey in these cases since we are always going to have the original in our minds.   

The Wizard of Oz is one such film that defies recreation, and the deep impression it made on generations of youngsters makes adding to the story problematic.  An attempt was made by Disney at a sequel in the 80's to disastrous effect.  Now they've tried an origin story, Oz the Great and Powerful, with Sam Raimi directing, that has the critics polarized.  Though it's hanging on by its fingernails to a "Fresh" rating on the Rotten Tomatoes site, a majority of the "top critics" featured have savaged it.  The Daily News' Elizabeth Weitzman went so far as giving it zero stars.  I was not expecting to see it, thus I knew the critical buzz going in, something I generally avoid if I know I'm going to write something.  I must say, as I was watching the movie all I could think was, "OK, it ain't exactly Dorothy and Toto, but it isn't that bad. In fact, it isn't bad at all." 

John Franco plays the title role of a carnival huckster who finds himself transported to the magic land of Oz when he tries to escape from a jealous strong man via a hot air balloon.  He encounters three witches, played by Mila Kunis, Rachael Weisz and Michelle Williams.  All appear good, but are they?  Yes, we have Munchkins and flying monkeys, along with tinkers and lake fairies added to the mix.  A few of the conceits from original movie are used, most notably that many of the people he encounters in Oz bare uncanny similarities to those he left behind in Kansas.  There is a doubt sown as to whether all this is really happening or it's just his imagination.  But neither is used fully, and unlike the original you are left believing that Oz is a real place.

The bottom line is, I didn't love this movie but it isn't the unmitigated disaster some have made it out to be.  Yes, it's adding on to a legendary film that many people, including myself, practically have memorized; a hard thing to live up to.  But remember that L. Frank Baum wrote several books about Dorothy and the land of Oz; why not try to adapt more of these stories to the screen?  The Wizard of Oz itself was not a very popular film when it was released in 1939, only gaining it's large audience when it started to get shown on TV in the '50's.  I'm not sure Oz the Great and Powerful is destined for that kind of immortality, but for a rainy day you could do worse.