Oz the Great and Powerful is Sam Raimi’s homage to the classic Wizard of Oz, with half of a well-developed script and lovely images of Oz, the fanciful land created by L. Frank Baum. Let me say up front that I am a huge Oz fan–I own over thirty books by Baum, including three editions of The Wizard of Oz plus a multitude of Ozania. I’m the demographic for this one.

Raimi is clearly a fan of the Judy Garland musical, and echoes the format, starting his movie in black and white (Kansas) and switching to color when they arrive in Oz. It’s an old trick, but an effective one, and it works particularly well here where the destination is in riotous color. There’s a nice tie-in to the Gale family (parents to Dorothy?), a familiar voyage to Oz, the treacherous poppy field, singing munchkins, and a flying monkey.

Little details are well handled: the hot air balloon sweeping epically through the air leaves doubt whether it will land safely, and the flying minions of evil are truly scary. Kansas is particularly flat, dull, and lifeless, and Oz gets lots of bigger-than-you-could-possibly-imagine colors. Working with these sets are terrific costumes–the cosplayer in me would love to recreate a number of the ensembles put together for the witches.
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