Oz: The Great and Powerful Blu-ray Review

I’ll admit, I had no interest in seeing Oz: The Great and Powerful when it came out. I thought it looked pretty dumb, and I’m not the biggest Wizard of Oz fan around, so I skipped it when it was in theaters. Disney reached out to see if I wanted to review the Blu-ray, and I thought I would give it a shot, and I’m glad I did. It was better than I thought it would be.

It’s no great film, but it gets an A for effort and it was pretty enjoyable to watch at home. Sam Raimi’s directing style still shines through the CGI occasionally and reminds you that a pretty accomplished filmmaker is behind it all. Odds are that Oz is a much better movie than Lone Ranger, which is currently bombing hard at the box office.

The Movie

Oz is a sort of prequel to the classic 1939 movie, telling the story of how Oz traveled from Kansas and planted himself as the Wizard of Oz. The story doesn’t seam as forced as Disney’s most similar movie, 2010’s Alice in Wonderland. I’m sure that’s because they actually had some books to draw from, and didn’t have to completely make the story up.

Oz finds himself in the middle of a war between witches, and is mistaken for the man who is supposed to save the people from the Wicked Witch, according to prophesy. Being a carnival magician and a con-man, he gladly accepts his new identity, and well you can kind of see where it goes from there.

It all sounds very predictable and boring but it’s executed nicely and some of the characters are a lot of fun. I particularly liked Zach Braff’s monkey character Finley, who life-debts himself to Oz, Chewbacca-style.

It’s not the best movie around, but you can tell everyone involved didn’t just phone it in and there are some cool sequences. I would definitely recommend seeing it. But what about the Blu-ray?

The Blu-Ray

The movie is gorgeous, and surprisingly it uses a lot of physical sets and isn’t all CG. The CG extends the backgrounds and makes Oz look like a pretty magical place, and overall the movie looks great on Blu-ray. Disney definitely knows how to put together a Blu-ray, and Oz: The Great and Powerful is no exception. After watching the movie, I was impressed with the decent amount of bonus features, including a featurette directed by James Franco.

Like a lot of Disney Blu-rays, this one comes with a DVD and a digital copy, if you’re into those things. I can’t really comment on the audio, because I’m not an audio-nerd and I just listen to movies through my TV’s built-in speakers.

The Verdict

If you’re a fan of Raimi, James Franco, or just Oz in general, you should check it out. All in all I was surprised by this movie, and it wasn’t a bad way to end an evening at all. Personally, I would like to see more big-budget family movies directed by Sam Raimi. Maybe he should try making a superhero movie!

Oz is available at Amazon.