Disney is all over the big game tonight. The studio has premiered a new television spot for Oz The Great and Powerful during tonight’s Super Bowl and now it is online.

You can watch it here below.

Essentially a prequel to The Wizard of Oz, James Franco plays the eponymous future wizard in his early days as a circus magician who gets swept away in his hot air balloon to the wonderful land of Oz thanks to a twister (Auntie Em! Auntie Em!) and encounters the land’s many magical creatures, including three beautiful witches played by Rachel Weisz, Mila Kunis, and Michelle Williams. However all is not all wondrous CGI backdrops and unlimited power and fortune, and Franco’s character will take a most extraordinary journey on his way to becoming that man behind the curtain….PAY NO ATTENTION TO THAT MAN BEHIND THE CURTAIN!!!

My interest in this movie should be a lot higher seeing as how it was directed by the one and only Sam Raimi, the impish Michigan gentleman who helped bring the world the Evil Dead and Spider-Man trilogies as well as such underrated genre gems as Darkman, A Simple Plan, and Drag Me to Hell. Raimi is unquestionably one of those filmmakers who can enliven the dullest material with his trademark dark visual wit and fearless energetic camerawork and editing. It’s just that I don’t see any of that Sam Raimi in the footage from Oz released so far. It will probably be a nice, safe family movie perfect to take the kids to on a lazy Saturday afternoon after having lunch at Chuck E. Cheese. But classic Raimi it will not be probably. Then again I am hardly the ideal audience for this movie.

Oz The Great and Powerful opens in 2D and 3D on March 8, 2013.

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