OZ THE GREAT AND POWERFUL

Barring the brilliant musical prequel Wicked, the land of Oz has been poorly served over the years. Sub-par sequels and spinoffs fi ll the circles of hell below L Frank Baum’s book series and MGM’s iconic 1939 film. What joy then that another prequel, this time from Spider-Man director Sam Raimi, should be such an absolute delight; a fairground ride where you get off giddy and immediately think, ‘Again, again’.

Oscar Diggs (a delightfully awful James Franco) is a smalltime circus magician and fulltime Lothario, whose plans to make it big as ‘Oz: The Great and Powerful’ are cut short by an angry husband. Oscar flees in a balloon but, Dorothy-like, is caught up in a tornado and carried to the land of Oz, where his cinematic destiny lies already mapped out. The one question is how Raimi will get him there.

Raimi is a brilliant director – Spider-Man is one of the best films of the Noughties, irrespective of whether or not you care for superhero pictures – and not a moment goes by when you don’t feel complete trust in what he does with this material. Old tropes, like the doubling up of characters from Kansas and Oz and a segue from black and white to colour, play perfectly alongside new ideas and storylines.

There are lovely nods to the Oz stories, from a field full of Horses of a Different Colour, to the massive hit of Technicolor when Oscar first lands. And then there are the witches: Rachel Weisz is vampishly delicious as Oz’s royal adviser Evanora. And Mila Kunis is just the right level of naive as Evanora’s sister, Theodora, who first discovers Oscar and thinks the old con will make all her dreams come true.

This Oz is fresh, free from any nostalgic wallowing: Michelle Williams’s Glinda cuts through the sugary goodness with a dose of realism, which you suspect the old 1939 glamour puss lacked. Oscar’s sidekick from Kansas (Zach Braff) is reborn in Oz as an unbelievably sweet flying monkey, and there’s a new addition with Joey King’s China Girl, the lone survivor of an attack on the knowingly named China Town.

Raimi’s background as a horror director doesn’t monopolise the picture, but there are enough scares to make you remember how terrifying the original was. For once, 3D is used to dazzling effect, with evil plants and flying minions leaping out into the audience – small children and nervous film critics will find this distinctly unnerving – while small-town Kansas flickers in a compressed screen, with odd bits of lightning flickering out to the sides like an old attraction.

If anything, this feels like it’s come from a back-on-form Tim Burton. From a jaw-dropping title sequence to the lushness of the landscape, all backed by perennial Burton collaborator Danny Elfman’s score, it’s Alice In Wonderland meets Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, but in a fi lm that actually works.

Franco’s Oscar starts out as an amoral cad, but as Oz works its magic, he becomes as close to being great and powerful as he’s likely to be. But Oz had us from the start – pure magic.