And that's what this really feels like: a cop-out on the part of the people tasked with telling this story.
Oz the great and powerful cast wicked witch movie#
We can blame magic, but even in a movie about magic, blaming it's still a cop-out. She's not wicked enough to be the Wicked Witch, and she moves too quickly from innocent and heartbroken to vengeful and insane. And then suddenly, horribly, we're asked to swallow this great big heaping spoonful of implausibility. I liked the visuals there, the humor, the beginnings of some character development. I liked that we began in Kansas, in black and white, that we rode the hot-air balloon to the colorful land of Oz.
I was actually really enjoying the film right up until this moment. And no, that's not the tiniest bit convincing either. One cursed apple later, and she's become a green hag with a penchant for maniacal cackling. We're to believe that it's Evanora's doing that turns her love to a burning, hate-filled rage, but it's not even the tiniest bit convincing. You see, Theodora not only falls extremely quickly for Oz, she turns against him the moment she feels at all spurned. It's Theodora, and Mila Kunis, and the oh-so-very forced writing and plot devices that bulwark her motivations that are the real Achilles Heel of Oz. In the wider plot, we can afford a bland princess-witch. Glinda is an entirely unremarkable character, but I can forgive that. So we have our witches three, and here is where things go sour. to kill her, claiming she's the wicked witch responsible for the death of the old king. Glinda (Michelle Williams) is first encountered, for reasons not entirely clear, in a dark and spooky graveyard at the back end of the dark forest. Weisz plays the villain convincingly, with enough menace and restraint to pull it off.įinally, there's Glinda the Good, replete with her flying bubbles.
Evanora (Rachel Weisz) is the manipulator, the real wicked witch, and-as far as I'm concerned-easily the best character in the whole film. Then there's Evanora, Theodora's older sister. She falls instantly and unconvincingly in love with the wizard, Oz, who also happens to be a terrible rake and lady's man. Theodora (Mila Kunis) is a young, naive thing, susceptible to love, bouts of fury, and her sister's manipulations. In Oz the Great and Powerful we have Theodora, Evanora, and Glinda.