Sam Raimi's prequel to L Frank Baum's Series of children's books plays greatly into Raimi's strengths as a director. A strong imaginary world that is covered in light and darkness and characters that inhabit that world with a quirky feel of childhood imagination. Raimi literally puts his heart and soul into this production and it shows, giving a festival of the senses with the viewer's imagination. While Raimi is working over time to make all of this work, a weak script and bad casting of two very important key roles set him back. The only thing that puts this film back on track is the game performances by two of the film's other actors, one in particular whose performance keeps this film from sinking from its own lack of depth.
For what does not work, look no further than the script, which is not very well put together. Yes, it is a kid's film but kids are a lot more sophisticated than some of the dialog here and some of the kids in the audience I was with moaned a bit while hearing it. Moreover, yes, it is a prequel to a story that many people know, so there should not be any real surprises but that is no excuse to be lazy with the script and the scriptwriting is lazy here. What makes the problems with the script jump out here is some of the casting, which is just bad. A good actor is able to make a bad script some how work for their character; a bad actor only magnifies the scripts problems and makes their character look worse. Unfortunately, we have two actors completely wrong for their roles here and it only makes this movie even a bigger chore to sit throw. The first cinematic offense is the main character Oscar Diggs, who is not only the weakest character in the film but has an actor who just not believable in the role. James Franco can be a decent actor when he tries and he can be infuriatingly bad when he just stands there and not care about his performance, which he does here in this film. The character of Oscar Diggs is supposed to be the anchor of this film, a man that has to see the error of his ways in order to be the man that he is destine to be. However, thanks to Franco's lazy performance and the weakness of the script, we really cannot see the good in the character and is not impressed with his changed of heart when the time came to prove himself. Oscar comes across more as a sleazy opportunist than a man conflicted with his inner self and we cannot root for him at all. The character is wasted opportunity and really does not add to the story and thanks to Franco's inability to show sincerity with his role, we really do not care at all about poor Oscar or his problems. Another character we end up not caring for is the character of Theodora, who (Come on, the cat has been out of the bag for a while) becomes the Wicked Witch of the West. Thanks to the script and Mila Kunis inability to show range or any emotion outside of anger, we do not care about how this character loses her innocents to become the evil witch and we do not care what happens afterwords. While both Kunis and Franco fall flat on their faces performance wise, not all the actors fall by the waste side and some of them are able to transcend the weak script in order to gives performances than is able to salvage the good Sam Raimi tries to give to this film. The first one belongs to Michelle Williams, who plays Glenda the good witch and manages to give off the right kind of goodness and decency that her character needed to be believable with out the added fake sweetness. She is genuine and believable and is able to make her character work despite the weakness of the script. It also helps that Williams is an amazing actor with a lot of range and is able to tap into her strengths to achieve this feat. The best performance however belongs to the great Rachel Weisz, who almost single handedly saves this film from all of its shortcomings with a performance that not only transcends its weak script but also manages to be even better technically than the film as a whole. When the script keeps moving south, Its Weisz that keeps moving the film forward. She gives a fun and sassy performance that manages to make the character of Evanora much more than the standard fairy tale villain and manages to give off a level of understanding and complexity that does not talk down to its audience. It is a brilliant performance with a weak script and only the best actors manage to accomplish that feat with out breaking a sweat and Weisz does that effortlessly.
While the script is weak and some of the performances pretty bad, it is the efforts of Weisz, Williams and Raimi that keeps it from falling off a cliff. For them only is the reason you should see this movie.
For what does not work, look no further than the script, which is not very well put together. Yes, it is a kid's film but kids are a lot more sophisticated than some of the dialog here and some of the kids in the audience I was with moaned a bit while hearing it. Moreover, yes, it is a prequel to a story that many people know, so there should not be any real surprises but that is no excuse to be lazy with the script and the scriptwriting is lazy here. What makes the problems with the script jump out here is some of the casting, which is just bad. A good actor is able to make a bad script some how work for their character; a bad actor only magnifies the scripts problems and makes their character look worse. Unfortunately, we have two actors completely wrong for their roles here and it only makes this movie even a bigger chore to sit throw. The first cinematic offense is the main character Oscar Diggs, who is not only the weakest character in the film but has an actor who just not believable in the role. James Franco can be a decent actor when he tries and he can be infuriatingly bad when he just stands there and not care about his performance, which he does here in this film. The character of Oscar Diggs is supposed to be the anchor of this film, a man that has to see the error of his ways in order to be the man that he is destine to be. However, thanks to Franco's lazy performance and the weakness of the script, we really cannot see the good in the character and is not impressed with his changed of heart when the time came to prove himself. Oscar comes across more as a sleazy opportunist than a man conflicted with his inner self and we cannot root for him at all. The character is wasted opportunity and really does not add to the story and thanks to Franco's inability to show sincerity with his role, we really do not care at all about poor Oscar or his problems. Another character we end up not caring for is the character of Theodora, who (Come on, the cat has been out of the bag for a while) becomes the Wicked Witch of the West. Thanks to the script and Mila Kunis inability to show range or any emotion outside of anger, we do not care about how this character loses her innocents to become the evil witch and we do not care what happens afterwords. While both Kunis and Franco fall flat on their faces performance wise, not all the actors fall by the waste side and some of them are able to transcend the weak script in order to gives performances than is able to salvage the good Sam Raimi tries to give to this film. The first one belongs to Michelle Williams, who plays Glenda the good witch and manages to give off the right kind of goodness and decency that her character needed to be believable with out the added fake sweetness. She is genuine and believable and is able to make her character work despite the weakness of the script. It also helps that Williams is an amazing actor with a lot of range and is able to tap into her strengths to achieve this feat. The best performance however belongs to the great Rachel Weisz, who almost single handedly saves this film from all of its shortcomings with a performance that not only transcends its weak script but also manages to be even better technically than the film as a whole. When the script keeps moving south, Its Weisz that keeps moving the film forward. She gives a fun and sassy performance that manages to make the character of Evanora much more than the standard fairy tale villain and manages to give off a level of understanding and complexity that does not talk down to its audience. It is a brilliant performance with a weak script and only the best actors manage to accomplish that feat with out breaking a sweat and Weisz does that effortlessly.
While the script is weak and some of the performances pretty bad, it is the efforts of Weisz, Williams and Raimi that keeps it from falling off a cliff. For them only is the reason you should see this movie.