Let me begin this movie review by saying that I generally really don't know that much about movies and I don't actually go and see that many of them. But I will say this: when I do go to a movie, I go in order to love that movie. I'm not the person who goes to a movie so that I can hate it and in fact, I generally will do my best, no matter what, to find some pleasant little nuggets and enjoy the films that I do attend. That being said, "Oz the Great and Powerful" should be classified as a crime against humanity, what a terrible god damn movie it was.
Now, when I said "I don't actually go and see that many" movies, don't make the mistake that I'm saying I don't watch movies frequently. I do, in fact, watch movies all the time-- I just tend to watch the same ones over and over again ad infinitum, to the point where most of my friends and loved ones avoid the topic completely lest they get an entirely new reading of the plot to Inglourious Basterds for the thousandth time. (In fact, I do this with most media... wait, do I have a neurological problem?)
To make a long story short, I love "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz". I have no idea why it's named after the Wizard, seeing as he makes like a four minute cameo, even including all of the other nine thousand characters the actor plays in the movie. No "Dorothy and the Wonderful Wizard of Oz"? "Dorothy in the Land of Oz"? Freaking Toto is on camera more than the wizard. "Toto and the Wizard Take Oz!" But I digress.
I have a longstanding love affair with Americana like this, the very specific type of unabashed, unashamed Americana that you can really only find in older media now because all of our movies and television today wink at themselves so much that it looks like they've been up all night drinking coffee and being scared by their mean-spirited older brothers that burned half the face off of one of those old MySize Barbie dolls and think it's funny to keep popping the zombie-faced near-lifesize bridal Barbie into your bedroom window at all hours of the night. Even though it's not funny at all. I lost my train of thought, but basically it feels like media today is really too self-aware to be genuine Americana because it's just trying so hard to be snarky. At itself.
So, gripe number one with freaking "Oz the Shit and Shitterful": they were just completely confused about where exactly they were. These lazyass writers were like, "Okay, now we enter Magiclandia where everything is colors and crazy flowers. Next." NAY, Lazy Writers. That is not how you create a landscape for a traditional piece of American folklore. I guess they had all read "Alice and Wonderland" before they started writing and got confused, because the world they created was certainly not the exaggerated-to-absurdity American landscape that we all know and love from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, and in fact, could more specifically actually just be Wonderland. Where were the cornfields, the poppy fields, the forests of oak and maple and apple trees? Yeah, sure, you threw a few cornfields and poppy fields in as a reference or "plot" point (I use the word "plot" loosely), but overall the place was totally unrecognizable as a Bizarro America, which is what it's supposed to be. Jerks.
Second gripe: James Franco, learn some freaking diction. Your annoying California surfer accent is fine when you're playing a hippie that gets stuck under a rock, but when you're playing an adult, and a ...suave? (Suave. Is that what he's supposed to be?) one at that, you look like a damn fool. And you make everyone around you look like a fool. It's like Keanu Reeves is all like "uh shyeah I'm from Stockton-on-Tees, and it's rad, dude". You're from god-damn Kansas, you act like it.
Third gripe, and you know this is coming: WHAT THE FUCK THE WICKED WITCH IS JUST PISSED ABOUT BEING TWO-TIMED BY THE WIZARD WHO SUCKS? THAT is why she's wicked???? And she's honestly just fucking dumb enough to take her lying, bitchy, manipulative sister's word for it? ALSO SHE KNEW HIM FOR LIKE TWO DAYS WHY IS SHE PISSED ENOUGH TO REMOVE HER OWN HEART?? (Sidenote: Can Sam Raimi get another make-up artist? Why do all of his characters just look like the 'Green Goblin, again'?) She goes from like, painfully naive and virginal to like, big bad bitch of the West, gonna fuck y'all up because I got slighted, once, by this one guy, who clearly wasn't that into me in the first place! And there's a weird plot point of like, who killed who's father for power? Like, the power was rightfully in the hands of a big strong man and then the wicked one goes and kills him to take power, instead of just waiting and being happy with what she's given, like a good little girl. There's some weird confusion in the beginning over which witch is which (ha), but the evil one is consistently described as the one who asserted her power instead of staying in her place.
Okay, look... I know I was asking for it by going to see a fantasy movie outside of Oscar-nomination season. And I know I should have done more research and realized that Sam Raimi was indeed the director, in which case I would have definitely re-thought my excitement about another Oz movie. But the lazy landscape and bad acting and weird plot aside, do we actually need to fall back on these careless, awful tropes? I mean they actually have a girl character, made of freaking porcelain. She's a pretty, white, little, delicate, breakable thing, and she's one of the freaking heroes. And, does she overcome her delicateness (read: femininity) to be an awesome character despite her inherent (inherent) sucking? No, she gets captured and constantly has to be saved from being dropped too hard. Is she spunky and resistant to authority? Yes. Is it played as a farce, that she's really just an insolent child and all she really wants is a nice cuddle and protection? Also yes. Also she acts like a little girl throughout the movie, even though she's clearly like fifteen.
There was no reason for this movie to go so off-the-rails. All I am asking for, in retribution for this very personal strike against me, is a stronger vetting process for people who want to come in and shit all over classic pieces of Americana-- where the ladies are genuinely spunky, and sometimes gun-totin', and sometimes sexy and vampy back when being sexy and vampy was rebellious and cool and not so patriarchally-funded-and-supported. Where the poppy fields and corn fields were center stage, unwinkingly. Where the regional accents of actors weren't so distractingly awful. We can't re-create that past (of course you can, ol' sport! Oh, you, Gatsby!), and bullshit movies like this are threatening an already endangered species.
Speaking of which, please stay tuned for my frothy review of the trailer for the upcoming Great Gatsby movie, which I will not see.
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