Ozzy Ozzy Ozzy Oi Oi Oi

Damn, I meant to check if it was post-converted before I saw it in 3D. And there is still no excuse for 3D. I did expect a few huge vistas in this movie, but I don't know if it's because I wear glasses or the technology or what, but I'm just not getting depth from these movies. (...which you could take a few different ways...)

Oz is a trickster who is taken to Oz and gets caught up in the battle of the witches. It's presented as a prequel to the Oz movie we know so well, so there are a lot of moments setting up later pay-offs in that earlier movie... if you get what I mean. (I have no idea if the books were also set up this way.)

A lot of this movie is, unsurprisingly, CGI. It is also, unfortunately and again not unsurprisingly, obvious CGI. It was incredibly even more obvious when James Franco was the only real thing on screen (insert joke here), and he was holding the China Girl and it was painfully obvious that he was just holding his hand there and not actually touching anything real. CGI can have a lot of trouble with immersion in the first place, and this shattered it more than she was.

James Franco is good as the lead. Hamming it up in good ways. His character arc isn't exactly... original, but still well done. Mila Kunis, Rachel Weisz and Michelle Williams (the last being the only one of the three women I've never heard of before) have differing levels of success as the witches, with Michelle rather hamstrung by having to be the good witch. Tony Cox has a lot of fun. I didn't recognise Bruce Campbell (other than thinking he was familiar).

It's a decent movie, but doesn't get away visually with what it thinks it does.

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