jose_moscardo Such a low score for one the latest great musical movies... I confess that it makes me a little painful. Because it impacted me when I was a kid but now, more than thirty years later, I continue loving it and my two sons enjoyed its magic and heart, maybe not so much as me but sufficiently if we consider what the kids expect now. Please, please... We have Diana Ross and Michael Jackson! The soundtrack is excellent and the FX are good for its time. Some of the choreographies are outstanding and the idea of transferring the world of Oz to the suburbs of New York is absolutely brilliant from any point of view. The atmosphere is great, I love the dark elements! But, above all, this is a fairy tale about friendship, love, learning from life, overcoming your fears and knowing yourself. About what it seems and what it is. It is a vital lesson made with love and passion, and full of talent.

Kingkitsch I watched "The Wiz" again, nearly forty years after my first exposure to it in 1978. I didn't hate it, as many posters on this title claim to, but I didn't like it either at the time. It just sat there on the screen, oozing diffidence in every frame. I use the word diffidence since that seems to best describe the entire movie (def: hesitant in acting or speaking through lack of self-confidence 2 archaic : distrustful 3 : reserved, unassertive). I noticed this same feeling watching the movie again after so long. Suddenly, it dawned on me that the movie lacks any tension at all. It simply moves along at a snail's pace to an ending that's suddenly rushed beyond belief. The use of Diana Ross to play Dorothy never bothered me. Anyone paying attention to the screenplay knew even in 1978 that the story had been reimagined in nearly every aspect except for the basic plot line. It seems that the real reason Miss Ross isn't regarded very highly by many is not that she's "too old", but rather, not very good. She's alternately whiny or frightened, which doesn't make for much of a performance. Only when she sings "Home" do we get to see her range; those very real tears are worth waiting for. Director Sidney Lumet treated her cruelly, sweaty armpits in "Brand New Day" and the unflattering closeup of her feet in the Silver Slippers. Given great direction, Miss Ross could have been brilliant. We cannot blame her for working with someone who seemed to have no interest in her. So, that's that. Everyone, all major characters. suffer from being underwritten. That's the fault of screenwriter Joel Schumacher. There's so little information about anyone that we can't care very much. It's as if Schumacher thought we all know the basic story and players so well that it wasn't necessary to flesh them out while throwing them into new territory. The actors do the best they can here but cannot overcome the poor screenplay. For instance, why does Glinda send the "snowclone" that brings Dorothy to Oz? We're never told. Has she been watching Dorothy from afar or something? This simple scene is crucial to the plot, yet we're given nothing to base the activity on. Here is what I feel is the biggest mistake made by Shumacher: since the source material for "The Wiz" came from a children's story, a great villain is necessary to move the protagonists along in whatever quest they're on. "The Wiz" throws away it's greatest asset, Evillene. The director Victor Fleming (for the 1939 "Oz") understood that the threat of the Wicked Witch was very important to the story. He used the incomparable Margret Hamilton exactly right, allowing her to underscore the lighter parts of the story until her denouement brought the story to a great climax. "The Wiz" hides Evillene until the last third of the movie, making her show stopping "...Bad News" number less potent than it should have been. There's no sense of relief as she goes down. She's been dispatched with with no real sense of urgency, so let's all dance around. Mabel King was pretty much robbed of what should have been the juiciest role in the whole production, but it's a testament to her talent that what we do have is so memorable. Evillene's wickedness is handed off to that weird peddler and his puppets, and never explained at all. It's supposed to be frightening, but is so random there's no real fear. Everyone screams and runs around until the bad trash cans are defeated. The ending of this whole unfortunate film is a shouting match between all the characters. Richard Pryor is simply dropped once he's discovered and screamed at by everyone. The elegant Lena Horne is saddled under a gigantic glitter-covered shower cap surrounded by babies hung on wires. "Believe in Yourself" is belted out for people in the cheap seats, a real misfire on what should have been a great ballad. Again, very poor direction. Miss Ross says bye-bye to all her pals, belts out "Home" and hey presto, she's back. She runs in the house. The End. That's all folks. No tying up loose ends with the family, or resolution. It all feels empty. The visuals set up by designer Tony Walton look better than you remember. His vision of Oz as NYC is memorable in many ways; it's always great to remember the Twin Towers as they were. Enough years have gone by for the patina of time to soften the hard edges of the mistakes made. So, for what it's worth, "The Wiz" is still a viable watch. The blame for this misfire can be laid on the shoulders of Lumet and Shumacher. They took out the magic and wonder, which is the lifeblood of such tales.

jennymel7 I chose to share this film with my daughters (ages 4 & 8) because in the midst of the Oz nostalgia, they needed to know it was first a story that could be interpreted many ways. While most reviews here are negative ranging from bad acting (to totally agree with watching Ms. Ross well up a few too many times), to racist (please keep in mind that this is an artistic adaptation of a book written in a time less educated than the ones we live in now and adapted in this format in a time period when black culture was establishing a sense of itself in the popular collective), this film is a delight. The music is exquisitely crafted, from disco anthems to blues-laden songs so catchy they become tunes you hum to yourself to yourself when you least expect it ("slide some oil" while cooking anyone?). Loved it and will watch over and over (although that will likely be my daughter's choice!)

ironhorse_iv Toto, I don't think we're in Harlem anymore. I think it's supposed to be Kansas, Joel Schumacher. This isn't a batman credit card, Joel. It's the Wizard of Oz. One movie that should have never been remade at all, at less, not in this way. The Wiz takes the source material and rewrites most of it. What a joke! This movie will angry both fans of the book as well of fans of the original 1939 film. It's kind of stupid in their attempt to urbanize it when the staged version of the Wiz had Dorothy in Kansas. The Wiz Broadway play was a bit better than this movie because of one reason. The stage version of the Wiz was big and well, pretty. The cinematography is pretty terrible. This movie looks like a nuclear war devastated wasteland of New York City. Dorothy (Diana Ross), a 30 year old African American kindergarten teacher leaves a large family dinner one night to chase after her dog during a New York City snowstorm and gets swept up by a cyclone. Rather than having bright colors, this version is mostly dark and gloomy. First off, Diana Ross is still old to play Dorothy. Dorothy is a preteen girl, not a middle age woman. Another thing annoying is that Dorothy afraid of everything. She so introverted, crying and whining, it's hard to watch. The first song doesn't have the same positive attitude as the song, somewhere over the Rainbow. It's more like somewhere over my black storm cloud of depression. Most of the songs here are depressing mediocre, and this was Motown known for catchy hits. Dorothy goes to see the Wiz to get home by walking the yellow brick road. She meets up with the Scarecrow (Michael Jackson) who just finish singing with the crows from Dumbo with the song You Can't Win, You Can't Break Even. I just can't believe they had Michael Jackson, and he barely danced in it. So sad, all that talent, wasted. They didn't do any better with the song 'Ease down the road' with the awful camera direction. It was a good song, but lastly badly done. All you see is their backs in a far view camera pose. There is a lot of wide shots in this film that get worst and worst. They then meet up with the Tin Man (Nipsey Russell) who sing like an awful William Shatner with the song What Would I Do If I Could Feel. Then the story follow up with them meeting the Cowardly Lion (Ted Ross). All of them make it to the Wizard (Richard Pryor) who tells them to kill the Wicked Witch (Mabel King). Rather than poppy fields, we get showgirls tossing angel dust drugs at our heroes. Rather than flying monkeys, we get biker monkeys, and trash cans with teeth. Honestly, it miss the message of the Wizard by skipping out the reasons why they wish to see the wizard. The lion in this film shows more courage, the scarecrow showing more insight and the tin woodsman showing more heart than their 1930's counterparts. Honestly the 1930's Wizard of Oz isn't like the book too. The Tin Man was a bit a flaming narcissist, Scarecrow was an annoying know-it-all and the Lion was a bully. Dorothy was annoying shrew of a girl in the earlier books. She was very insistent, never wrong about anything, quick to disagree, pushy, and rude. In latter books she becomes more tame and demure bland, but still has her moments. Still, the Wizard of Oz is more open to a wider audience, and has the optimism charm that makes it popular. This movie is negatively a downer. The Oz sets looks like the dump, a lot of the songs are not memorable, lot of the songs from the play is missing, and some of them are not even in the play at all. The characters are not as funny as the Judy Garland version and lastly, the movie butcher the source material. I'm like the Tin Man, I have no heart for this movie.