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Oz takes us down familiar yellow-brick road
Prequel of classic tale isn't great and powerful, but still worthwhile
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James Franco, as Oz, left, and the character Finley, voiced by Zach Braff, are shown in a scene from "Oz the Great and Powerful."
“Oz the Great and Powerful,” a prequel to the iconic 1939 adaptation of L. Frank Baum’s “The Wizard of Oz,” is being framed as a huge gamble for Disney. Reviving that widely loved, fiercely protected property might draw huge audiences, or it might provoke an intense backlash. Judged on its own merits, which is admittedly difficult to do, “Oz” is a visually spectacular, predictable, yet entertaining movie.