Review of The Wiz (1978) by Jordan K — 05 Jan 2013

My first review of the 2013 is starting off with something terrible- a true abolishment to film that practically ruined one of the greatest films ever made! I hate musicals already, as some of you know, which makes me angry with this movie already but there's a ton of flaws and strange crap in the movie that, maybe, purposely tears into the Wizard of Oz and sets on fire, deletes the footage and retapes it with some of Quincy Jones' next door neighbors. It's that bad.

Well, the story's not that different if you already know the plot of the original, Dorothy Gale, who by the way lives in Harlem instead of Kansas, is a kindergarten teacher who gets sucked into a tornado and sent to the land of Oz. The Munchkins are kids who are living drawings of graffiti (literally alive graffiti drawings) and of course, Dorothy goes off to see The Wiz. Nope, not the Wizard, that's too old. We need to get some flashy play on words in this movie, so let's call him The Wiz! While you're at it, why not call him "Da Wiz"? Sorry, just a LOT of anger at that part. Anyways, she meets the Scarecrow, who is played by Michael Jackson, who has no brain, the Tin Man, who has no heart, and the Cowardly Lion, who has no courage. So they venture off on a quest to visit the Wizard. This results in a crapload of bad musical numbers that waste at least a half hour of the film. Not only are the musical numbers bad, but most of the scenes are psychedelic and don't make sense. Anyway, the Wicked Witch of the West has a sweatshop in this version and sings funky Motown songs in her spare time, just like the original! Dorothy defeats her quickly and finds out that the Wiz is a fraud and is really just Richard Pryor, desperate after being in Superman 3. Dorothy wishes to go back to Harlem and she does by the power of Lena Horne! The end of a terrible and strange, strange movie.

Okay, if you thought I was hard enough on the movie already I go harder in this part. For one, Diana Ross' portrayal of Dorothy is terrible. She cries a lot in the film and makes unbelievably bad crying faces. Michael Jackson just prances around, Nipsey Russell plays the Tin Man and isn't half bad and neither is the guy who played the Cowardly Lion. The musical numbers are okay and I can name one that is kinda catchy, but like I said most of them are slow Diana Ross songs and are time consuming. It's also way too long and very psychedelic- everything comes alive and the makers totally butchered the original. The Wiz is a piece of crap movie with piece of crap songs.