Dorothy Gale (Paulie Rojas) is a simple girl in rural Kansas who writes children's books based on the land of Oz created by her grandfather. Her mundane life is turned upside down when she receives an offer from a big New York agency to represent her books. In New York, Dorothy soon realizes her books, and her grandfather's stories, are based in reality. The magical world of Oz and all of its inhabitants are very real and they are coming to New York City! Dorothy and her friends are the only ones who can stop the evil Wicked Witch of the West and her plans for global domination. Also starring Billy Boyd, Sean Astin, Ethan Embry, Mia Sara, Lance Henriksen, Christopher Lloyd.
T**T
I love it!
I'm a huge ass fan, so I tend to like anything that's made about the Oz stories. I don't really think there's any bad Oz stories, if anyone's read the original books written by L frank baum, they'll see that it's actually very childish and a little boring, so anything that anybody can add to it I guess or make the stories more fun and exciting, I'm all for it. And apparently so was he. So I love all the different perspectives that people come up with. I know a lot of Oz movies and shows have been poo pooed by people who are die hard and GM 1938 movie fans, but that is not exclusive. I like them all. I like Wicked the book and on Broadway, Oz the Great and Powerful from Disney, Return to Oz from Disney, the animated specials, you name it they're all fun. And this is no exception. If you like Oz, you're going to like this.
J**N
WIZARD OF OZ REDUX?
I am a rabid Wiz of Oz fan and have been so since I was tiny. I have almost the entire library of the Oz books, both from Baum andmany other later authors (quality varies with authors). This is an extremely well made movie (unexpected by me) and very enjoyable with standout visuals and special effects. I thought this was better than that Disney tripe about the Wizard; this is a bit more faithfulto the original stories. There are oddities in this film, especially with much of the action taking place in NY, not Oz. They do, however revisit part of the original story, including the mashing of the evil Witch of the East by Dorothy's house; OUCH! The nasty Witchof the West wants revenge on Dorothy and also a key she has to unlock a book of magic which will give the evil green face monsterous powers. The Wizard who is still around tricks her. Dorothy is sent back to Kansas and the story goes on from there.The regulars are there, though I thought the Tin man was ridiculous; he looked like something from TRANSFORMERS. But theaction is good and Fun and Evil is trumped at the end. If these paragraphs or sentences are out of line it is this crummy keybdI am typing on. Though there are a few weird things here, I give it 5 stars for production quality, cast, costumes and highproduction values. And no Dr Sweets or Martha. Oh yes, there are the flying Monkeys too..very neat!! This too from Amazon.I think all fantasy fans and Ozoids will enjoy this one.
C**E
It's okay
This is a very long movie and the acting is okay most of the time and just awful the rest of the time. The special effects were really good and a lot of money was obviously spent on making this movie. Too bad that they didn't spend more on getting better actors and editors to work on the lines to make the dialogue flow more smoothly. The story jumps around a lot and it presupposes that you have some knowledge of the story from either the original movie or have read the books. I was on vacation and recovering from Thanksgiving guests, plus I paid for the movie, so rather than turn it off one third of the way through it, I stuck with it. By the half way point, it was more interesting and made more sense. Two thirds of the way through, it all came together and had a lot more action and special effects and began to make sense. I don't feel that the actress (Paulie Rojas) was the right one for the role nor did I think that the dog that played Toto was believable as Toto. Even the Toto described in Baum's books was "a little black dog with long silky hair..."
S**N
Old tale modern loved it.
Loved the actors, plot. Thin k youll enjoy.
E**D
One of the Worst and Most Misguided "Re-Imaginings" of Fantasy Material
This film is almost an exercise in how to make a bad movie, but this isn't the kind of bad movie that's enjoyable. Needlessly time-consuming, it borrows from every cliche in popular fantasy (particularly the "something we know as a story is actually another universe"). While there's some knowledge of the extensive Baum works at play, it's such an unbelievably disjointed movie. Rarely have I seen a film where literally everything was so bad. The editing, for one, would be bothersome to even audiences who don't really notice that sort of thing so much. We are constantly reminded of the plot, but these reminders change things in a convoluted way so that there's no sense of continuity. The "surprise revelations" are either so obvious that it's understandable to become impatient and angry with the film's persistent ignorance that the viewer is still in the dark regarding so many obvious attempts foreshadowing that are in no way subtle. It also makes the huge mistake of many post-LOTR fantasy films by trying to force in an epic fantasy battle...repeatedly. There is little to no understanding of tone or scene transition ever established. Money is spent on the strangest things: larger special effects that don't really contribute to any element of the story run rampant (establishing no sense of wonder) while tiny prop details, costuming, and practical effects are so uneven that it's hard to take them seriously as fantastical, realistic, or even important.I think one of the film's cardinal sins is how is loses sight of its already ill-defined and amorphous intent. You'll find a good deal of material stolen from the Tin Man mini-series, Tim Burton's awful version of Alice in Wonderland (don't ask; I don't know why), and when all is said and done--if you can make it to the end (though I don't blame you if you turn it off way before then)--you'll see that a huge portion of the film poorly steals from the wonderful 2007 film Stardust. I don't know which is worse: "re-envisioning" The Wizard of Oz in such a cheap way or blatantly lifting so much from a great movie like Stardust (which the writer and director watched in a very poor way so as to forget that the 2007 film from which they so shameless steal from had logical plot structure). I can't really overstate the great Stardust theft at work in this clunky film: the score, "composed" by one of the lead actresses/writers/director's bff is just the shameless changing of a few notes and key signatures from Stardust's breathtaking original music. Speaking of the actors...Don't be fooled because the film features Lance Henriksen, Christopher Lloyd, Sean Astin, Billy Boyd, Jeffrey Combs, and Mia Sara. Literally all of their parts are poorly written, easily forgotten, and re-appear for convenience rather than being integral. Boyd and Sara are the only actors of that pretty good list of actors who have notable degrees of screen time. The focus is unfortunately placed on Paulie Reddings's absolutely atrocious Dorothy, a character whom I dare you to try and connect with, and Eliza Swenson's very odd (and not at all endearing) performance as Billy Westbrook (I won't "spoil" that surprise, but guess what Wizard of Oz character she is?). Billy Boyd is shoe-horned in as a love-interest for Dorothy. Sara is wasted as an nonthreatening antagonist drawn from the Baum books named Princess Langwidere. While they actually do appropriately assign the character with the right name from the books, she essentially occupies the place of a substitute Wicked Witch of the East and is an obvious cash-in on the disturbing Mombi character from Return to Oz. Though Langwidere is actually the name of the princess who steals heads, her inclusion is without a doubt a poor attempt to recapture the legitimate horror of the aforementioned headless princess plot from the effectively disturbing 1985 film. There's very little homage to the 1939 film that isn't trite or forced. The acting is just so terrible, almost as though there was a rule set to avoid believably appropriate reactions to situations. The rendition of Glinda is godawful both visually and acted.It's a digressive film to say the least, boiling over with so many flashbacks and dream sequences that the " secret truth of the plot" is consistently obscured.I'm finding it hard to think of a movie that has so desperately--at times often aggressively towards its viewers--tries to force chemistry between actors like it does with Reddings and Swenson. The film's sense of time is terrible for both the story content and the actual pacing, and one of the desperate attempts to trick viewers into believing that relationships have developed while avoiding showing any of this supposed development are small bits of dialog like "Well, it's been four weeks." Out of these little "reminders," the film with some degree of hostility quietly screams at its audience "LOOK, THESE RELATIONSHIPS HAVE FLOURISHED! TRUST ME!" There's just so much incongruity that it begs the question how a film/series was ever green-lit. It's release has also been terribly confusing, being sold as both a movie and a mini-series (failing in both forms). I think that last little insight is telling of the film as a whole: the creators want it to be everything and don't believe in making any creative decisions.
M**S
Actually good
I watched this film/series on the tv and found it very enjoyable. It sparked an interest in the wizard of oz series as a whole and led me to read all of the books. I really recommend this film for anyone with an interest in the wizard of oz.
G**W
witches of oz
very good
J**T
Five Stars
Brillant delivery on the item thank u so much
H**R
DVD
OK!
M**Y
Four Stars
Very enjoyable well worth watching if your into the wizard of oz