Oz the Great and Smarmy

For once I actually got out to a movie in a timely fashion--opening weekend no less! This so rarely happens lately, and I've developed a considerable list of movies that I need to catch up on once they hit Netflix. I think I will have to give up on sleeping if I ever want to watch them all. So how disappointing that one of the rare times that I actually saw a movie within a week of its release, it was such a disappointment, while I continue to miss out on a lot of really amazing films on the big screen.

I didn't show up at Oz the Great and Powerful expecting to come out gushing with a new favorite film. As usual, I'd read numerous reviews of the movie and seen that feelings were pretty lukewarm. I was hoping I would like it well enough and enjoy the scenery. I saw it in 3-D, which I can take or leave, and while some of the scenery was pretty overall I was longing for a little more physicality. Perhaps it's because I can't get the Scarecrow's elastic face out of my head, but I just kept wondering if they really had to make both of Oscar "Oz" Digg's sidekicks CGI creations.

Image via Wikipedia

But what really did the movie in for me was not the overabundance of special effects, but the plot and characterization that the creators of the film settled on. If you're even more behind than me, the film is a prequel to the classic The Wizard of Oz, a movie that has stood the test of time so well that kids still grow up watching it without realizing that they're experiencing an "old movie." The story in the new movie is supposed to explain how the Wizard (played by James Franco) ended up in Oz and was something of a catalyst for events in the original film. Spoilers abound from here on out, so if you still want to see the movie with some surprises stop here.

Unless you've been living under a rock (or a house), you'll already know that The Wizard of Oz is about a farm girl from Kansas who goes to the magical land of Oz and immediately pisses off the Wicked Witch of the West by killing her sister and getting ahold of her magic shoes. The Wicked Witch of the West (or WWW for brevity's sake), played by the fantastic Margaret Hamilton, is one of the most iconic movie villains of all time. She's powerful, she's evil, and she has an army of terrifying flying monkeys that continue to haunt children's dreams.

I know you're quaking in your boots just looking at this. Image via Wikipedia.

So while the hero of Oz the Great and Powerful is theoretically that guy who ends up hiding behind the curtain, aren't you a little more interested in getting the backstory on her? I mean, there's already a successful literary and musical franchise based around this concept. And the movie does give us an explanation of why the WWW went from just being a witch to being the Wicked one. Their explanation is just pretty lame. It's all because of a boy.

I will admit that I haven't read many of the Oz books, and the ones I have read were long ago. I'll probably pick them up again in the near future, as some of the discussions I've read have done a great job discussing the role that strong women play in the Oz mythology. For my purposes I'm going to stick to the two films, because those were enough on their own to annoy me. It's unfortunate that a film from 1939 brings us more interesting, nuanced, and strong female characters than one released in 2013.

Let's start with the original. We have our obvious protagonist Dorothy. Dorothy is pretty strong willed from the start; she refuses to submit to the bullying of Miss Gulch and takes charge of her own destiny straight off. When she arrives in Oz, she's greeted by Glinda, another female leader, who gives her a little guidance but sends her off on her own to save herself. Dorothy does meet some male friends along the way, but all of them need here just as much as she needs them, and come with her so she can help them rather than to simply protect her. And then of course there's the WWW, who is seeking power and control in Oz. She doesn't need any excuses.

Note particularly how I described the guys in Dorothy's life: they're her friends. Looking back on this film, I guess we never needed When Harry Met Sally; Dorothy already answered that question for us. It's an entire movie with a cute, young lady protagonist (who can sing, no less) and nobody wonders who she's going to end up dating at the end.

Let's skip ahead a few decades to Oz the Great and Powerful. I can get why the creators of the film might choose Oz as the hero rather than, say, Glinda. Putting the focus on Oz allowed them to frame the movie in a similar way to the original, starting out in Kansas and then traveling to the land of Technicolor. The two main character traits that Oz exhibits, however, don't set him up as a very compelling character. He's ambitious but struggling to make anything of himself, which handled differently might have worked, but the other defining thing about him is that he's a womanizer.

So what happens when he's thrust into a world where the three strongest figures are currently three hot witches? He seduces all of them, of course. The first is Mila Kunis, playing Theodora the eventual WWW. She falls for him hook, line, and sinker, and once she realizes he never had any intention of making her his queen, she begs her sister to harden her heart and turns to the dark side. The spell has unintended side effects and she changes from an adorable Carmen Sandiego-wannabe to an angry green lady in a pointy hat and sexy black dress (and again, a CGI face--Kunis has pulled off some twisted roles in the last couple of years, at least give her a chance to try and act for herself). I like Mila Kunis, but she doesn't pull off evil in this roll and comes across as shrill and childish, further twisting the knife that the WWW is now nothing more than a bitter woman hell-bent on making an entire kingdom miserable because a dude she knew for twelve hours didn't love her.

The movie might have had a little redemption if at least one of the three witches hadn't fallen for Oz's crap. Glinda seems to see through him at first, calling him on being a liar and a con man. The bright spot in the movie was their time planning the siege on the Emerald City together, and I was hopeful that at the end of the movie she would thank him for being instrumental in saving the kingdom and leave him to do whatever he pleased behind his curtain for the rest of his time as Wizard. But despite the fact that he actually called her the wrong name for half of the movie, she still made out with him as the credits started to roll. I actually turned to my husband and stuck out my tongue.

It's a sorry state of affairs when a mythology filled with interesting women can be updated into something where the only thing for the female characters to do is fall in love with the (dull and uncharming) male lead one after the other. And these ladies were witches, far more powerful than Oz himself. I found myself wondering throughout the film why any of them felt they needed him--couldn't one of them just take the throne? At least Glinda needed someone to help her get around the "no killing" rule the good people of Oz were subject to. Evanora particularly seemed like she should've just taken over herself. But instead all of these potentially interesting gals were nothing more than pretty faces for Oz to play off of. I found him neither great, nor powerful, just kind of icky.