IrishFrog

Straight Outta Oz is amazing! It mixes personal and political, reality and fantasy, as it tells the story of a little boy who grows up in a hostile world and faces its hardships from a very early age.

Through a unique set of songs, all very different from one another, this musical retells Todrick's story by mixing it with The Wizard of Oz, without, however, losing its grip on (a harsh) reality. From bullying and the pressure of societal conformity at an early age to the reality of police brutality, shootings and the toxicity of show- business in adulthood, we see a life unfold before our eyes. It's a biography, it's a story about leaving the safety of a home that wasn't all that welcoming to begin with, it's a love story, it's a political protest, it's heartbreak and, most of all, it's art. And it's art brought to us by a variety of talented people from so many different artistic backgrounds: Todrick Hall, RuPaul, Nicole Scherzinger, GloZell, Jordin Sparks, Bob the Drag Queen, Amber Riley, Raven- Symoné and so many others.

It will make you smile, cry a little and want to dance and, in the end, it will have been an amazing hour you spent listening to incredible songs.

"Meh" is what defines this show to me. It isn't particularly good nor particularly bad, it's not even memorable, to be honest. The characters were boring at best and hateful at worst, the main story lines are just average and I couldn't be bothered about them, the "subplots" (that's what I'm calling the stories that are limited to one episode) were sometimes interesting, but their development was eventually flawed and not at all spectacular... But it's not remarkably bad either, it's just... plain, flat, dull.

It's simply not remarkable or memorable in any way, so I'm left with very little to say about it. It's a forgettable show and I wouldn't advise anyone to waste their time watching it.

Now here's the thing: I've read the book, which means I started the movie knowing what to expect. So the cheesy plot, the seemingly nonexistent background, everything was already inherent to Divergent in my mind. To me, it was simply part of the concept that the movie would develop, so I didn't find it so horrible. In fact, I even thought it was a good adaptation of the book, but then that could have been because I read it over a year (or maybe even a couple of years) ago. I can't say it was objectively good, though.

The romance was awful, there seemed to be no chemistry between the characters in question, they definitely would have been better off as friends. Time seemed to be off too. I mean, I knew quite some time was supposed to have passed between (SPOILER)the choosing ceremony and the final confrontation(/SPOILER), but the director didn't seem to be able to convey the passage of time properly, so hadn't I read the book, I think I'd probably have a sense of timelessness and would see it all as a bunch of things that happened somewhere at some point with some unknown amount of time separating them.

Not only weren't characters really unique or remarkable, but also the film lacked emotion and thrill. Most scenes that could have been intense seemed to be left unexplored in detriment of more fight scenes and, seeing as I'm not really a fan of action (or romance, for that matter), I didn't care much about all that violence.

Despite all that, I did enjoy myself while watching it. I don't know why. Maybe seeing images I'd only had in my mind be put into something real and concrete made it special to me, maybe I already knew how bad it could be, so whatever good thing came of it was surprising enough... In the end, I'd say this is a movie for you to watch when you don't have much to do and you just want to relax.