OZ THE GREAT & POWERFUL (M) starts off promisingly.

It’s Kansas, 1905, and Baum’s Circus is in town. This lackadaisical circus is managed by a conjurer called Oscar Diggs, known as Oz, a cad and a bounder, who puts the carney into carnival. When the cuckolded strong man tries to kill him he takes flight in a hot air balloon which is caught in a twister that transports him to the Land of Oz.

All the pre Oz stuff is shot in old style standard format in black and white with incredible title design. Arriving in Oz we go to colour saturated Panavision.

Being a magician, he fits the bill of a prophecy that states that a Wizard will come to free the land which is in a political turmoil under three sisters Theodora, Evanora, Glinda. Like Lear’s daughters, Theodora and Evanora  are adverse to Glinda.

The three sisters are played by Mila Kunis, Rachel Weisz and Michelle Williams, all splendid, and the real scene stealers of the film. James Franco as Oz  is doing his James Franco thing. There’s munchkins and tinkers and flying monkeys, and Zach Braff voices an aerial Simian in a bell boy uniform called Finley.

It’s an origin story so we see how the Wicked Witch of the West was created and there are allusions to lions, scarecrow and tin men. A yellow brick road, an emerald city, but no Dorothy! Obviously, she’s somewhere over the rainbow.

The visual effects are impressive, especially the attack on Chinatown and the discovery of the sole survivor, a china girl whose legs have been smashed. This is one of the more poignant parts of the picture and introduces one of the most memorable characters in the show.

Shot in 3D, Robert Stromberg, Oscar winning production designer of AVATAR and ALICE IN WONDERLAND is on hand to create a lush and detailed OZ, and it is sumptuous, and Danny Elfman’s score is suitably fantastical.

OZ THE GREAT & POWERFUL could have been much greater and powerful had it not suffered an unsustainable length – in excess of two hours- a malady suffered by so many movies these days.

© Richard Cotter