Jeff Goldblum

I just wish he didn’t play the exact same character with the same goatee and glib ad-lib lines in every movie he’s been in lately. It’s always a “never meet your hero’s” archetype. It worked the first time for him and maybe would have been a great addition if this was the first time he ever did it. But this wasn’t it. Everything else transported me to Oz. Jeff pulls me right back out of Oz. His singing was decent although I can’t imagine singing to those two powerhouses so props to him for doing it. He toned it down overall, maybe because he didn’t have all the power in this character compared to others to be so arrogant the entire time, but I’m over it. Even the stone face of him during Wizard and I got laughs from the audience.

I enjoyed every other artistic choice in this movie and it didn’t ruin the best scenes so for that I’m thankful.

I was looking up those that have placed the Wizard of Oz before, and I have to say this.

Is Jeff a great and likable person? Absolutely. Is he an amazing actor? …No.

Because of his unique voice and speech patterns it’s hard to ever see the character he is playing. It’s never “characters name” it’s “Jeff Goldblum playing (characters name).” Sometimes it’s even “Jeff Goldblum doing an interpretation of Jeff Goldbum playing (characters name).”

However!

During the defying gravity scene I really have to give him a lot of props on his acting here.

You can literally see the shock horror in the wizards face. When he realizes, he just made the biggest mistake of his life.

The wizard is a conman, even in the original, and once he got to once and convinced them he was their Messiah…he decided he was NEVER going to be simply a conman again. For the rest of his life, he was going to live the life he had always dreamed but knew deep down, before getting to Oz, he was never going to achieve. At least in the same scale as what he achieved in Oz.

For years, he has become a shell of the charming and cunning man he once was. Now he just spends his time living in fear of all he will lose if his lies are ever exposed.

Elphaba, is “the one” or “the thing” that has haunted him for a while and now he is seeing that nightmare not only come to life but by his own actions.

Again, I will never say Jeff is an amazing actor. A great person all the way.

But this scene I absolutely have to praise him on.

I thought he did a great job and didn't do too bad with the signing, he played the sleazy conman that is the wizard very well

Can we all agree that Jeff is a likable person, but…he never comes across as the characters he plays.

It’s not the Wizard of Oz. It’s Jeff Goldblum acting like Jeff Goldblum pretending to be the Wizard of Oz.

I really hate insulting the guy because he is a likable guy. To me he is like Keanu Reeves. Keanu, is a wonderful person who I love and like seeing him in movies but if he ever won an Oscar I’d been the first person to call bullshit.

While I like Jeff, I just don’t believe he was a good pick for such a character. Of course I would pick him over James Franco any day.

I will say, the one thing I will give Jeff credit for is, I think he did his best at portraying a man that lives in fear of his lies being exposed.

Is there anyone else you would have picked?

is it odd to anyone else that they got goldblum to sing the part in NOMtW? He sounded amazing, don't get me wrong, but they kind of gave away the fact that the wizard was her father right then and there due to the fact his voice is so distinctive. I wonder why they didn't get someone else to sing it that sounded similar but younger, idk it just stuck out to me.

i mean it's probably not something a lot of people would notice, I asked my mom whos never experienced the play if she could guess after the movie was over and she couldn't, but then i'm not sure she even knew who was playing the wizard before they got to the emerald city