Lucy 🏳️⚧️ 🏳🌈’s review published on Letterboxd:
Oz is whimsical, Oz is fantastical, Oz is vibrant, Oz is unreal. For the love of Oz, embrace that and color grade your movie. This looks like raw camera footage. I'm not sure if this was Jon M. Chu's idea, the Cinematographer's, the Color Grader's, or the Studio's, but the point is that we didn't used to be afraid of letting our movies, especially ones that are textually, tonally, and aesthetically born out of Fantasy, have a defined color depth and texture to its image. It is particularly frustrating here as every other aspect of its approach to Oz EXCEPT for its color grade is trying to capture and revere the feel of the Old Hollywood, Technicolor genius of the MGM Musical, down to its opening logo being a modern interpretation of the 1930s Universal Pictures icon!! I hope that a Fan Re-Grade of the whole film, not unlike the Star Wars Despecialized Editions, is made and brings this closer to what the rest of the film aims to look and feel like. 90% of the film's problems stem from here for me. Somehow this is all Kevin Feigie's fault.
Other than that, I feel that this mostly works!! Jon M. Chu's Direction is sometimes a bit on the safe side with its use of coverage, though most of his work here is honestly staggering!! The way he moves his camera through his environment is so dynamic and intricate in a way that I feel he often isn't given due credit for. Also the use of light, scale, and editorial formalism here in its Musical Numbers especially is a genuine breath of fresh air amongst the current state of artless blockbuster IP studio mandated nostalgia fan service content, which makes its color grade all the more frustrating, as it will get lumped in with the likes of the Tom Holland "Uncharted" or Dwayne Johnson's "Red One" because of it, when I'm not sure it belongs among them. "Dancing Through Life" is a genuine Show-Stopper!! Best Musical Number I have seen since probably Spielberg's crack at "Gee Officer Krupkee" in his version of "West Side Story"!! Glad to see that Jon M. Chu still has his "In the Heights" blood in him!!
The story is as resonate as it has always been!! Love the idea of the Oz that we know and love being a secret Fascist State. So much thematic subversion in relation to its visual language there that the film, thankfully, emphasizes often!! The entire sequence at the Emerald City is one of my favorites of the entire Picture for this reason!!
Cynthia Erivo eats up every bit of the emotional pain and aspirations of Elphaba with a surprising amount of intricacy and so much empathy!! Ariana Grande plays Ariana Grande. Kind of hilarious how much she sticks out like a sore thumb in this cast.
Very relieved that this isn't the trainwreck that the marketing made it look to be, though nowhere near as Phenomenal as I had hoped either!! Am very interested in where they will go cinematically for Part Two and how well the story will work as a whole when both are viewed one after the other!! Hopefully by next year they will have fixed the color grade by not making Oz look grey.
' ].join(''); if ( adsScript && adsScript === 'bandsintown' && adsPlatforms && ((window.isIOS && adsPlatforms.indexOf("iOS") >= 0) || (window.isAndroid && adsPlatforms.indexOf("Android") >= 0)) && adsLocations && adsMode && ( (adsMode === 'include' && adsLocations.indexOf(window.adsLocation) >= 0) || (adsMode === 'exclude' && adsLocations.indexOf(window.adsLocation) == -1) ) ) { var opts = { artist: "", song: "", adunit_id: 100005950, div_id: "cf_async_2a348de4-c3da-46be-9338-0d4925ec499a" }; adUnit.id = opts.div_id; if (target) { target.insertAdjacentElement('beforeend', adUnit); } else { tag.insertAdjacentElement('afterend', adUnit); } var c=function(){cf.showAsyncAd(opts)};if(typeof window.cf !== 'undefined')c();else{cf_async=!0;var r=document.createElement("script"),s=document.getElementsByTagName("script")[0];r.async=!0;r.src="//srv.tunefindforfans.com/fruits/apricots.js";r.readyState?r.onreadystatechange=function(){if("loaded"==r.readyState||"complete"==r.readyState)r.onreadystatechange=null,c()}:r.onload=c;s.parentNode.insertBefore(r,s)}; } else { adUnit.id = 'pw-2a348de4-c3da-46be-9338-0d4925ec499a'; adUnit.className = 'pw-div -tile300x250 -alignleft -bottommargin'; adUnit.setAttribute('data-pw-' + (renderMobile ? 'mobi' : 'desk'), 'med_rect_btf'); if (target) { target.insertAdjacentElement('beforeend', adUnit); } else { tag.insertAdjacentElement('afterend', adUnit); } window.addEventListener('DOMContentLoaded', (event) => { adUnit.insertAdjacentHTML('afterend', kicker); window.ramp.que.push(function () { window.ramp.addTag('pw-2a348de4-c3da-46be-9338-0d4925ec499a'); }); }, { once: true }); } } tag.remove(); })(document.getElementById('script-2a348de4-c3da-46be-9338-0d4925ec499a'));
' ].join(''); if ( adsScript && adsScript === 'bandsintown' && adsPlatforms && ((window.isIOS && adsPlatforms.indexOf("iOS") >= 0) || (window.isAndroid && adsPlatforms.indexOf("Android") >= 0)) && adsLocations && adsMode && ( (adsMode === 'include' && adsLocations.indexOf(window.adsLocation) >= 0) || (adsMode === 'exclude' && adsLocations.indexOf(window.adsLocation) == -1) ) ) { var opts = { artist: "", song: "", adunit_id: 100005950, div_id: "cf_async_ac520325-75b2-488c-888b-61a3b2feda92" }; adUnit.id = opts.div_id; if (target) { target.insertAdjacentElement('beforeend', adUnit); } else { tag.insertAdjacentElement('afterend', adUnit); } var c=function(){cf.showAsyncAd(opts)};if(typeof window.cf !== 'undefined')c();else{cf_async=!0;var r=document.createElement("script"),s=document.getElementsByTagName("script")[0];r.async=!0;r.src="//srv.tunefindforfans.com/fruits/apricots.js";r.readyState?r.onreadystatechange=function(){if("loaded"==r.readyState||"complete"==r.readyState)r.onreadystatechange=null,c()}:r.onload=c;s.parentNode.insertBefore(r,s)}; } else { adUnit.id = 'pw-ac520325-75b2-488c-888b-61a3b2feda92'; adUnit.className = 'pw-div'; adUnit.setAttribute('data-pw-' + (renderMobile ? 'mobi' : 'desk'), 'sky_btf'); if (target) { target.insertAdjacentElement('beforeend', adUnit); } else { tag.insertAdjacentElement('afterend', adUnit); } window.addEventListener('DOMContentLoaded', (event) => { adUnit.insertAdjacentHTML('afterend', kicker); window.ramp.que.push(function () { window.ramp.addTag('pw-ac520325-75b2-488c-888b-61a3b2feda92'); }); }, { once: true }); } } tag.remove(); })(document.getElementById('script-ac520325-75b2-488c-888b-61a3b2feda92'));
