So I finally saw, “Oz: The Great and Powerful” on DVD last night. It was a Netflix DVD rental. This film is the prequel to the original 1939 film, “The Wizard of Oz” directed by Victor Fleming and based upon the book by L. Frank Baum.

My thoughts on, “Oz: The Great and Powerful”… I thought the film did a pretty good job explaining the original film; however, the script was a mess. Yes, this new film was based upon the Oz books ’cause remember they were a series of novels. Sam Raimi was pretty faithful to the stories but there was something missing with the script and needed a little improvement. The dialogue was a bit of a mess and the acting wasn’t that great either. I thought James Franco was pretty annoying and they should have used a better choice of an actor for Oz.

I was actually most impressed with Mila Kunis who played the Wicked Witch of the West. Mila was the best part of the movie. She was pretty sexy as hell in the film with or without the witch costume & makeup. Mila made a sexy Wicked Witch even in the green skin. Mila did a great job playing her.

After watching the movie, I can see why Disney wanted Sam Raimi to direct this movie ’cause they wanted this movie to be kind of scary and they knew that Raimi has horror experience. A lot of material in this reminded me so much of the “Evil Dead” movies, for sure. I’ve always liked Sam Raimi’s directing style. He’s unique and different. Even though this is a high budget movie, Sam still has some of his B-movie directing in this film.

Some of this movie is pretty entertaining, though. The film has a lot of action and quite a bit of violence in it. Sam did an okay job making Oz having a love for magic and turning him into an evil wizard when he’s not really.

With all this being said, I thought the film was okay. Nothing all that great and nothing amazing. I just wish they didn’t make it so similar to the original film. After I watched this film last night, I thought to myself, “Was this a remake or a prequel”? I looked at it as a remake ’cause almost every scene was pretty much the same from the original film. If you wanna call it a prequel, then make it a prequel… don’t make it similar. I hate it when prequels do that. George Lucas didn’t do that with the Star Wars movies… he made those prequels totally different stories.

The original “Wizard of Oz” movie with Judy Garland is one of my favorite films. I’ve seen that movie too many times ever since I was a child and still love that film. It’s a classic indeed and honestly that film doesn’t need prequels, remakes or sequels. It should have been left alone ’cause if you make it a prequel, you’re just ruining the mysterious part of the story. It takes the magic out of it, know what I mean?

“Oz: The Great and Powerful” was alright. It’s nothing I’ll watch over and over again. It’s still worth checking out, though!

Kev