Movie Review: 'Oz: The Great and Powerful' Neither Great, Nor Powerful but It's Okay

Director Sam Raimi's new movie fills in the back story of Oscar "Oz" Diggs, an unctous charlatan in a traveling side show. He flees from an unsympathetic crowd in a hot air balloon, gets caught up in a tornado--what a cool idea!--and lands in the magical land of Oz. There, he meets three witch sisters, Evanora (Rachel Weisz), Glinda (Michelle Williams) and Theodora (Mila Kunis). And a cute, flying monkey and a China doll, who may be the movie's best characters. The witches try to convince Oscar that he is the foretold Wizard who will restore order to Oz and put a very wicked witch in her place.

Here's what the critics are saying:

As a series of sights, which movies like these are, "Oz the Great and Powerful" is more like "Oz the Digital and Relentless." Certainly this is true in its final half-hour, which seemed to me to be all explosions ... It's best to consider "Oz the Great and Powerful" as the bombastic 21st-century prelude to the 20th-century "Oz" we know. - Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune

Oh, it has its moments of movie magic, in moving scenes where the orphaned miniature porcelain China Girl -- the film's best character -- appears. But too often, "Oz" caves to blockbuster conventions, preoccupied with creating a visual template to make Oz magnificent when Oz's magnificence has more to do with the heart and the soul rather than the spectacle of large blooming flowers and cascading waterfalls. - Randy Myers, Contra Costa Times

Opening in black-and-white and in the old-timey Academy screen ratio of the 1939 film, Oz the Great and Powerful expands to glitzy color and widescreen 3-D when it arrives you-know-where, but the switch doesn’t pop; it just sort of seeps. With all the advances in effects technology, the tornado here can’t match the one that spirited Garland’s Dorothy to Oz. - Richard Corliss, Time Magazine

The new spinoff from L. Frank Baum's 1900 children's novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz may not be great, exactly, but it is powerfully entertaining. A prequel that imagines the origins of the famous wizard character, Oz the Great and Powerful reveals his humble carny beginnings in Kansas and continues through his vaunted existence in the Emerald City. Oz is respectful to Victor Fleming's beloved 1939 film classic, incorporating famous lines and retaining plot points that audiences know well. - Claudia Puig, USA Today

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"Oz, the Great and Powerful" is rated PG and runs 130 minutes. 

Ready to see "Oz"? Head to Regal Hamilton Mill 14, 2160 Hamilton Creek Parkway. For more theater information and links to showtimes and pricing, click here or call 678-482-0624. Click here for Regal Mall of Georgia showtimes.