When you get down to it, Toto is the most important aspect of the entire epic. He discovers the Cowardly Lion, The Wicked Witch, The Flying Monkeys, he marches in place with the incognito troop from Oz, and surely enough he is the one who manages to uncloak The Wizard and reveal him to be nothing but smoke and mirrors. He’s the twisted government official who is little more than a sniveling little man hiding behind a sheet and some smoke. Toto has always managed to be regarded as something of a secondary element to the overall narrative of this adaptation, but when you get down to it he’s pretty much the audience, the one who watches and goes along with all of the other characters in hopes of making heads or tails of this whole charade. He’s the watcher, and surely enough, he’s the one who keeps Dorothy and the group’s moral center in tact the entire time they’re fighting with apple throwing trees and that dreaded field that puts the entire clan to sleep.
Todd Philips’ road trip comedy is something of a mystery that manages to possess much more of a complex plot than we’re led to believe by the trailers originally. In its heart it’s about four friends re-connecting for one wild weekend before the wedding of their friend Doug, all the while exploring four friends who are also getting in touch with a part of themselves they lost or will eventually lose when they get back home to domestic monotony. The four characters here are much more representations of the male such as Stu who is a delusional male whipped by his domineering wife anxious to break out of his confines. Alan is something of an erratic monster who isn’t a bad guy even if he’s done some truly perverted things. Doug is a man facing a big change in his life about to marry a wealthy woman who is also the girl of his dreams and presenting a life as a married man and possible father, while Phil is a man who refuses to let himself be toned down even though he’s a father and a husband.
