He uses all the latest in visual effects and 3D filmmaking to make a movie that feels very old fashioned, from the vaudeville gags to the story beats, the very broad stagy performances of actors playing archetypes to the cut and dry moral of the story, everything feels like an a family film from the 30s or 40s. Except, of course, the very revealing, modern wardrobe of the witches and some of the scarier scenes.

A carnival magician named Oz (James Franco, Rise of the Planet of the Apes) is a two-bit conman of a magician, using his sleight of hand and old bag of tricks to enchant small audiences and seduce a string of women. When a tornado sweeps him from Kansas to a magical land called Oz, he encounters a power struggle amongst a group of witches, Theodora (Mila Kunis, Ted), Evanora (Rachel Weisz, The Bourne Legacy), and Glinda (Michelle Williams, My Week with Marilyn) who promise him all the gold in the land and the throne of the kingdom if he is the great wizard of prophecy, foretold to end the wicked witch’s reign of terror. With the help of a flying, talking monkey (Zach Braff, Scrubs) and a sentient china doll, Oz must find a way to uses his familiar bag of tricks to convince a real world of magic that he is the most powerful being in the land.

This picture had me from the opening credit sequence, cleverly devised to combine the razzmatazz of 3D CG filmmaking to evoke a classic, black and white world of illusion through puppetry, strings, and cranks. It perfectly sets the tightrope of tone that the film aspires to walk. I was worried for a moment when Oz first arrives in the Land of Oz, and the environment looked way too much like the latest version of Alice in Wonderlandinstead of the Oz of the beloved 1939 MGM classic. Once they get to the yellow brick road, however, things thankfully start to look a lot less CG, and a lot more set and matte painting’ish. The story beats are simple and direct, the characterizations are painted on, the design is super colorful and oversaturated, it feels a lot more like a Technicolor spectacle family film than any I’ve seen in a long time. And the final battle is everything you could ask for in an Oz picture, extravagant, involved, and very cleverly executed. I had a very good time watching it.

Franco tries his hardest, and at times he nails some of the smaller comedic moments, but overall he’s just too modern of an actor to pull off a classic film performance. Kunis suffers from the same problem. Though they’re both actors I like very much, it’s clear they’re tap dancing as fast as they can, trying to commit to a technique that feels false to them. But they mostly feel like 21st century actors overcompensating and they don’t feel wholly a part of the world the filmmakers are reincarnating. However, Weisz nails it. She made me believe the big beats and the broad pantomimes perfectly. Braff is also indispensable as the hilarious monkey sidekick, and although he’s pretty much an animal version of his J.D. character from Scrubs, it really works in this context.

A quick word of warning to parents. One of the smaller audience members present was brought to tears by a couple of the 3D flying baboon scares, and I’m sure was horrified by the dark forest and the scarier witch scenes, of which there are three or four.

My personal opinion: Sam Raimi keeps using his films to tell us how magical the art of movie making is. He’s rarely found a better vehicle for it than the third act of Oz the Great and Powerful. Even though this was clearly made as a kids movie, anyone who liked the original Wizard of Oz will feel more at home with this than any of the other adaptations.

— Jake Jarvi