Crwthod
A lot more amusing than I thought it would be.
Humbersi
The first must-see film of the year.
Frances Chung
Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable
MstrPBK-727-83839
This movies is certainly a good companion movie the Original Wizard of Oz by MGM, and the Tin Man. IT is one that I have in my own collection. For all of its good points it keeps leaving me with three questions:1) How can one justify nine Munchkins as an Army?2) Glenda the Good, suggests that the character played by Billy Boyd has an Oz counter part. For the plot of the movie no-one says what that parallel is; so it leaves me wondering what character is it and if they edited 15 minutes out of the story out in the cutting room.3) While the Tin Woodsman may well have a grudge with the Gnome King; I feel as though some part of the movies is missing somewhere to explain what this grudge is and where it started.Even with these plot omissions there's a good movie, good plot, and good adventure here for anyone who wants to re-enter the world of OZ one more time!
WakenPayne
My brother thinks this is the absolute pinnacle of bad movies. Me personally? It's not that bad. That however is faint praise coming from a person who saw the Three animated titanic films, Night Of Horror, Monster A Go Go and a list of others.The plot to this movie is that Dorothy Gale, author of a new set of Oz books finds out that she in fact is the same Dorothy that she writes about. While this is going on we find out that her publisher is the Wicked Witch Of The West (which also ignores her melting at the end of THE MOST BELOVED OZ STORY) and wants to retrieve a magic book (That wasn't in any Oz book I've ever read). The Wicked Witch sides with Princess Langwedire (I know I'm nitpicking like a fanboy should but... She was in Ev, not Oz). While the characters from The Wizard Of Oz are there too with real life character parallels.Where do I begin. Firstly I'm not going to criticize the special effects because it's obviously low budget but I'm going to devote this paragraph to more holes in the Oz series. First of all, The Nome King... WHAT DID THEY DO TO HIM! Out of all the characters I felt this one was given the worst treatment out of all the character's featured (and that says a lot). All he does is fight the Tin Woodsman (who for some reason is a robot in this one)... and scream the line "No one beats the Nome King!" Where was the magical diabolical monarch from the books because whoever that... THING was he was NOT the Nome King.For a kids film, if they don't mind getting talked down to there are 2 other things wrong with it. If it can't get an Oz fan invested in the story (I'm not kidding I was looking at my watch frequently) then I'm sure children wouldn't be. The other one is that there is a scene where Langwedire asks Dorothy if she can sex Oz up... This is a world where anything is possible, one where children can read (or watch the movies) and find escapism and they're being told to sex it up.Anything else, The writing is horrible. I've seen one of Leigh Scott's films before and I think he writes great premises when doing something that isn't a rip-off. The problem is that the way it's executed is horrible. Sometimes in the very first few scenes that we see L. Frank Baum as a character we are to feel sorry for him because Dorothy is swept up by a tornado (in this one she's L. Frank Baum's daughter and Uncle Henry's aunt) I'm sorry but he has 2 scenes, one of which was a montage. We can't feel sympathy for him as a character.Finally there's the acting. The person who played The Wicked Witch Of The West seems to be the inspiration for Mila Kunis' in Oz: The Great and The Powerful... And she was one of the best actors in this thing. They under-use Christopher Lloyd and Lance Hendricksen and Sean Astin is annoying.So what's my recommendation? If you like low budget movies and have little knowledge of Oz then this is perfect. The characters are misrepresented from the books, you can't get invested in the story, it doesn't seem like it's for kids with that "Sex up an 11 year old" talk, the writing is horrible and the acting is hammy at best. The only redeeming feature for this is that very few times in this movie, it was unintentionally funny. It isn't the worst movie ever made... Hell, it would barely make my bottom 30.
Morbius Fitzgerald
I kind of had enough hopes for this to watch it and maybe I could like something this guy did. Oh my god I was wrong. Okay first of all, I should tell you all that I absolutely love the idea of Oz, a magical world that children can escape to and make it their own, a lot can be done with that. Return To Oz, the 1985 film, is actually my all time favourite film so I am more than open to any Oz adaptation. How does an independent film company make a movie about Oz when its run by Leigh Scott? I'm not convinced they did. So lets take a look.The film starts off with a Middle Earth style narration explaining that a munchkin created Oz when the world was full of magic and when it was created Wicked Witches were at war with the Wizard. He decides to give them a book with a word that can make anything happen, the key to the book is missing, only to be with Dorothy, magical crap happens and they get transported to 1990s America. Confused yet? Get used to it. So Dorothy grows up and becomes a children's writer who writes stories about Oz it turns out that a talent agency wants to sell the book and hopefully get it published. When she goes to New York (the place everyone associates with Oz!) she decides to write but can't.Then you have a scene which has probably the most cringe worthy dialogue EVER FOR ANYONE OF ANY AGE! First of all the talent agent requests Dorothy sex's herself up and when they get into the publisher's, they want the Dorothy in the book to wear skintight leather pants and jacket after real Dorothy says that fictional Dorothy is 11 years old! Okay, Leigh, you do realize that this is a family film? Not only that but the way the publisher reveals it is so dumb that Peter Griffin would laugh at it. There is so many things wrong with this scene that it's just not funny. Almost everyone has grown up with at least one version of the Oz story being told to them. Did anyone actually read this scene aloud before filming it? You can't throw crap like this at an audience and expect them to go along with it!So, lets just say for the sake of the review that you'd keep watching this movie after that scene, Eventually it gets revealed that real Dorothy and fictional Dorothy are one (who would've guessed?...) Then Uncle Henry left a letter for her after he died revealing that she was his Aunt thanks to the fact that she went into a tornado into the land of Oz and stayed there with enough time for 110 years to pass and when she was transported back, they (Uncle Henry and Aunt Em - Em doesn't have a single line in this movie, by the way) raised her as their own. WHAT?! This is the dumbest twist in a movie since Monster A-Go Go, this is like magic moonbeam dolphins on the titanic, there is no way that Scott gave a crap when writing this scene. Whether you grew up with the books or the movies (The Wizard Of Oz or Return To Oz, PICK ONE!) this is the jump the shark moment. No I take that back, this is jumping the shark while nuking the fridge and frying the coke ALL IN ONE EASY SWIPE!Okay so yet again, lets just say, hypothetically, you kept watching after that twist, its revealed that the talent agent is actually the Wicked Witch of the West who is also coincidentally played by the actual movie's producer (at least they got SOMETHING correct, anyone who financially backs THIS while reading the script has to be evil!) They go through this rushed climax, even though the people of New York act like there's nothing wrong when Dragons are on the empire state building (how would people not notice that? When were there dragons in Oz?! How did that get no attention?!) Dorothy tells the Witch how many good time they had (no they didn't) and she saw the good in her (how?) and used the power of the silver slippers to stop her. Then through some bullsh*t no one remembers anything besides Dorothy and the Scarecrow, New York is restored to life and they go along their merry way.My complaints about the plot...no comment. The CGI is awful, when the graphics of Pong and Space Invaders are better than that of a movie your making, stop making movies! The acting is pretty awful and if you look at the cast you'll see that is no easy thing to buy, you have Sean Astin, Christopher Lloyd and Lance Hendricksen in the cast. They all give pretty bad performances because the best actress out of the whole movie...was the film's producer who actually makes me miss Mila Kunis as the witch.Overall this movie did not just not understand what Oz was about, oh, it understood, but it was made as a movie with one goal in mind - to destroy everything about it that made it credible. They spend all their time in this movie in New York. Yeah, an Oz film spends more time in New York than Oz! This movie is without a single doubt in my mind the worst movie ever made. So long Star Wars Holiday Special, adiós Batman And Robin, Superman 4, Howard The Duck, High School Musical this movie outdoes you all in terms of horribleness. Avoid this movie at all costs.PS. I actually forgot to mention the book with the word...apparently that was all the Wizard's plan, the book is actually the entirety of the Declaration Of Independence and the American Constitution...you wait 2 and a half hours for THAT ending. Think about that.
gavin6942
Dorothy Gale (Paulie Rojas) discovers that her best selling novels are actually based on suppressed childhood memories of her time in Oz, and that she may be in danger of experiencing it all over again.This film follows in the footsteps of "Alice", the 2-episode miniseries on SyFy that put "Alice in Wonderland" in a modern setting. Despite my strong dislike of almost all Alice adaptations, I enjoyed that. I feel much less about this one.There are some strong points here: a generally likable story, an excellent cast (with Christopher Lloyd, Sean Astin, Billy Boyd, Ethan Embry, his holiness Jeffrey Combs and more) and a nice blend of elements from the original stories (I appreciate making the slippers silver rather than ruby).But the down side is its 1400 visual effects. The film was stronger when it was not using poor computer animation and had less makeup. The Wicked Witch could have looked human the whole time -- there was no purpose in having her transform. None. And it does not need to be three hours. Trimming this down to two would make it a much stronger film, especially in scenes with an excess of conversation.There is rumored to be a director's cut with footage removed, the effects redone and more. I strongly suspect if this film exists that it is the better version.
