Some familiar L. Frank Baum characters get a reboot and new ones take shape as James Franco and Michelle Williams weave the enchanting tale in “The Wizard of Oz” prequel “Oz: The Great and Powerful.”

While staying true enough to the original Oz characters the film takes on a personality all its own. The CGI is well blended with realistic elements to give a dreamlike overall quality to the whole movie.

If anyone is expecting to get the same feel from this movie as they did about the 1939 classic they may be a bit disappointed.

There are no full song and dance routines. The characters are much more gritty and real than the sugary sweet original. While the Emerald City still exists and the Yellow Brick Road continues to take us there, the journey is somewhat different.

The film opens in the same manner as its predecessor, filmed in sepia toned color in a rural part of Kansas with a huge windstorm on the horizon. But, instead of a pretty young girl and her iconic pup in a basket, we meet the awkward duo of James Franco as “magician” Oscar Briggs and Zach Braff playing his stagehand Frank.

These two spend their days putting on shows at the local carnival complete with a terrifyingly strong ‘strong-man.’ Being away from his usual comedic partner, Seth Rogen, Franco takes the lead here and delivers some truly funny jabs to the ex “Scrubs” star Braff in the opening dialogues.

In this new take on the direction of the movie, Sam Raimi, (whose own horror classic “Evil Dead” gets a retelling this April) gives a breath of a slightly darker landscape to some of the sides of Oz we haven’t seen before. While staying within the guidelines of its PG rating, Oz still delivers a movie with enough substance for a mature audience.

As the story starts, a visit with an old love interest of Oscar’s, Annie portrayed by 3-time Oscar nominee Michelle Williams, is interrupted by the blind rage of the strongman who has reason to believe Briggs may have gotten intimate with his wife. This sheds a glimpse into the womanizing ways of Oscar as this ongoing theme peaks its head throughout the film.

Oscar is confronted with the lost love when Annie arrives at his doorstep asking whether or not she should accept the marriage proposal of John Gail, “a good man.”  The brief encounter makes it obvious that true love lies between them.

Yet, Oscar wants more than to be a good man; he wants to become a “great man.”

Herein lays the reason the story evolves as we follow Oscar on his journey as he transforms from the conman to Oz: the Great and Powerful.

The same spinning vortex, a tornado, which carries Dorothy to the Land of Oz sucks up and spits out Oscar into the strange and wonderful place, though the trip is notably more intense than the original.

In the same way Raimi uses violent camera angles and movement to make the woods surrounding the house in his Evil Dead franchise seem possessed; the winds literally threaten to rip Oscar apart within the first few minutes of the movie.

This mysterious new world is richly detailed. For once the CGI green screen does not leave the feeling that you are just looking at an environment separate from the human actors.

Our first encounter with any life forms (besides the horrible river faeries) once we get to Oz is Theodora the Good. She is portrayed by Mila Kunis who attempts to woo both the audience and Oscar with her beauty and fantastical sense of wonder.

Oz, the notorious womanizer from Kansas, does not easily fall for her tricks but realizes she might be the only chance he has to survive and goes along with her.

Theodora naïve nature sets her up for heartbreak as she quickly falls for Oscar on the belief that he is the prophecy that will save the kingdom and make her a queen. Yet, it becomes obvious with the introduction of her deceitful sister Evanora (Rachel Weisz) that there’s more beneath the surface of this great land that will eventually mold the futures of Theodora and Oscar.

Just as in the original Wizard of Oz, some characters make a repeat appearance with Williams appearing to us as in a vision as the good witch Glinda and Braff voicing Finley the original “flying monkey” as Franco’s partner along the journey.

Another CGI main character is the China Girl, a key element in many scenes throughout the film who symbolizes the many common folk Oscar swindled during his years in the traveling circus.

All in all, this movie does a thorough job of creating an independent line of history that could eventually lead up to the opening scene in “The Wizard of Oz” where Dorothy lands a house on the Wicked Witch of the East.

Until then talks of sequels will be sure to follow. Hopefully creators will take their time in developing a story line that does the original film justice.