Oz the Great and Powerful

"Kansas is full of good men. I don't want to be a good man...I want to be a great one."

"[stuck in the tornado] I don't want to die! I haven't accomplished anything yet! Please!"

"Oz? That's my name. Oscar Zoroaster Phadrig Isaac Norman Henkel Emmannuel Ambroise Diggs. But everyone calls me Oz."

"How hard can it be to kill a Wicked Witch?"

"I have everything I ever wanted."

"Aren't you the Great Man we've been waiting for?"

"I am on no one's side. You know that I simply want peace, that's all I ever wanted, and the wizard can do that. He's a good man."

"This is who I am now. I want him to see me like this. I want him to know that he was the one who made me this way."

"You're capable of more than you know..."

"The shield allows a good-hearted person to pass."

"You can't give me that. You took what mattered most to me: My father."

"I don't need them. The bubbles are just for show."

"Watching our hero fill the clown-sized shoes of prophecy is only as unbearable as its creators' inability to make their tale distinct. But enlivening detail is absent from most of Oz the Great and Powerful, a film that is largely distinguished by the fact that it's not quite as flavorless as it could have been (especially when compared to Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland) … Yet when a film positions itself in the shadow of a beloved fantasy classic, passable isn't good enough. "Oz" never goes anywhere you don't expect it to. … Oz the Great and Powerful was apparently made by a committee whose honorary speaker just happens to be the director of Drag Me to Hell."

"Raimi has kept hold of his irreverent sense of mischief. Telling the story of the faux wizard’s journey to stewardship of Oz, the new film somehow manages to be eye-wateringly vast and endlessly light on its feet. How refreshing it is to enjoy something we never knew we wanted. … It transpires that, like Monty Python’s Brian, this Oz meets the description of a saviour, long prophesied in myth, who will lead the magic kingdom to safety and prosperity. Oz’s sleepy eyes sparkle at the prospect of access to a hoard of gold. But dangers await him. … Yes, the picture feels a little like a cynical money-trap for the cinematic shoulder season. But Raimi really makes it fly. It’s all because (you knew something like this was coming) of the wonderful, wonderful things he does."

"Now that I'm a parent, I realize that Oz is the father figure … He's not a bad man but not someone who can solve all his children's problems for them, either. All he can really do is appreciate them for who they are, so that they learn to appreciate themselves. … As much as I enjoyed Sam Raimi's new movie, which is breezy and bright in myriad dimensions, I doubt his story will exert a … hold on the popular imagination for generations to come. … we're no longer watching Dorothy, an innocent abroad. Instead, we have James Franco's Oscar Diggs ("Oz" for short), a charismatic charlatan and a two-bit showman with an eye for the ladies — any lady, really; wiccans welcome! If there's a throne and a treasure trove at the end of the rainbow, maybe he'll stick around the next morning. He's not all heel, though. At least he has the decency to be embarrassed that he's not the magical savior everyone seems to be expecting. He says he aspires to greatness, even if he never seems likely to stretch for it. … The new "Oz" falls short of the 1939 "Oz" in charm and innocence and certainly in songs (there is only one, a brief, jokey number from the Munchkins). But as family entertainment, it's hard to fault such a rapturous spectacle and astute, suspenseful piece of storytelling."

"No movie ever can, or will, replace 1939’s The Wizard Of Oz, but taken on its own terms, this eye-filling fantasy is an entertaining riff on how the Wizard of that immortal film found his way to Oz. Like the stage musical Wicked, it assumes that its audience knows the story told in The Wizard of Oz. … The production pays homage to the 1939 movie by opening in black & white, in the old-fashioned Academy screen ratio, then expanding and turning into vivid color once the magician named Oz (short for Oscar) arrives in the faraway land that bears his name. I was a bit skeptical about the casting of James Franco in this role, as a small-time carnival magician, but he is thoroughly engaging as a struggling con man and charmer. … Is this an Oz for the ages? That’s not for me to predict, but I do think it gives audiences of 2013 a satisfying big-screen experience. It doesn’t eclipse The Wizard of Oz, but it fills the bill as a modern-day companion piece."

"James Franco has turned much of his adult life into performance art that feels equal parts sincere and con game, and it would seem he'd be well cast as Oscar Diggs, a small-time illusionist and unabashed serial liar working the dusty back roads of Kansas in 1905. The problem is, Franco's a lot more believable playing slimy than sincere, and the part requires him to do both. It's a steady but less-than-captivating performance. … Much of Oz the Great and Powerful centers on Oscar's transformation from me-first slickster to the Wizard of Oz, aka Man Behind the Curtain. With Oscar relying heavily on the inventions of Thomas Edison, his hero back on Earth, to pull off his biggest trick ever, Oz the Great and Powerful finally breaks free of its beautiful but artificial trappings and becomes a story with heart in the final act. Thing is, we know Oz and its wizard and those witches and the Munchkins are destined for a far greater adventure a little ways down the Yellow Brick Road. The landscape won't be as amazingly gorgeous and the witches won't be able to fly about and hurl fireballs with the ferocity they display here, but it will be a much more magical adventure all the same."

"James Franco - Oscar Diggs / Wizard of Oz"

"Mila Kunis - Theodora / The Wicked Witch of the West"

"Rachel Weisz - Evanora / The Wicked Witch of the East"

"Michelle Williams - Glinda the Good Witch / Annie"

"Zach Braff - the voice of Finley the Flying Monkey / Frank, Oscar's circus assistant"

"Joey King - the voice of China Girl/Girl In Wheelchair"

"Tim Holmes - the Strongman"

"Bill Cobbs - Master Tinkerer"

"Tony Cox - Knuck the Fanfare Player"

"Abigail Spencer - May"

"Bruce Campbell - a Winkie guard"