Genres

Visitors Review

2013-05-23 13:12:21

The dark side of Oz.

If you are looking for this to be like the first "OZ" then you should look elsewhere. Very creative and an interesting story, but much darker and "over the rainbow" type singing. I personally really like it, but nothing like the original.

William C. Uchtman 2013-05-23 08:03:20

Not A Sequel

I never saw this movie when it first ran in theaters although I would haveliked to. I finally saw it recently on the Disney Channel where I noticed itwas not made to be a sequel, but a more closer recreation closer to theFrank L. Baum story with all the images and lore crammed in as far aspossible and as many differences created to show the two apart. The specialeffects are over the top though and it tries too hard to be charming, butunlike the original film, the real world of Kansas is too harsh and nastyfor little kids to appreciate. It is worthy to note that Fairuza Balk of"The Craft" was such an adorable and beautiful child in her youth, and quitea believable actress. I do like the scenes with the witch who choosesidentities from different heads up until she ruins everything with the headof Jean Marsh; how'd she get in there ?! Dorothy's innocence is played up inseveral scenes and too far in others as she learns how her visit tamperedwith the grand scheme of things in Oz. None of the characters of the firstfilm are given very large roles, but the visual creations are stunning andworth it to give the film a look.

2013-05-22 11:07:26

An embarrassment to Oz fans

I'm a huge Oz fan. I own all of Baum's Oz books and I've read them all numerous times. I've practically memorized the script of the 1939 Wizard of Oz movie. If I haven't convinced you that I'm obsessed, I even have an Oz cookbook! But I've only seen Return to Oz once, and I don't want to see it again.The overall tone of the movie is way too dark for Oz, even though it seems as though it was intended to be a sequel to the 1939 Wizard of Oz. The whole insane asylum/electric shock treatment concept is rediculous, not to mention unbelievable. Why would Dorothy be considered insane for believing in Oz? She's only a little girl.Other reviewers seem to think that Return to Oz is based on an actual story by L. Frank Baum. It's really a combination of two books, The Marvelous Land of Oz, and Ozma of Oz. But the two storylines are mixed together, and they're completely unlike either book. It's as if the writers of this movie never even read the books.If you're a fan of the Wizard of Oz, the movie, and you want "more of Oz", don't waste your money on Return to Oz. Instead, I would recommend reading Baum's books.It's really no wonder Return to Oz wasn't as successful as The Wizard of Oz was.

rlough9272 2013-05-21 15:44:07

VERY GOOD

This is one of my favorite movies. It is a much darker movie than TheWizardOf OZ (1939), but that is good. There are some parts in this movie whichmayfrighten smaller children (The Wheelers, The Gnome King, Mombi's heads).TheStory is excellent, and the acting is really good too.

2013-05-19 18:44:20

I LOVE this movie!

I wish people would quit basing their judgement of this movie on the 1939 Wizard of Oz. The '39 movie is a better movie, yes, but Return to Oz is better OZ, as anyone who has read the books can tell you. The books are in fact often very dark and frightening, as this movie also often is.Return to Oz does an admirable job of combining elements of the two books that followed The Wonderful Wizard of Oz into one story, with the addition of an expanded Kansas storyline. The performances are wonderful all around, as are the special effects (including groundbreaking-for-its-time claymation.) And true Ozophiles will catch numerous glimpses of many characters from the books in the final triumphant scenes, which is a nice little added bonus. Of the rash of fantasy films of this type that came out in the mid 80's (think Legend, Neverending Story, etc.), this is by far one of the very best. For fans of fantasy, or just good movies in general, I cannot recommend Return to Oz enough.

2013-05-19 05:41:48

I think this movie was great.

The reason I like this movie is,because they started where the oringinal left off.Fairuza Balk is excellent in her first movie.The character are delightful,and witty.I recommend this movie.

2013-05-16 17:51:09

Not the Oz Most of You Grew Up With, But Still a Classic.

Chances are, if you're reading this amature review you've probably seen the original Wizard of Oz with Judy Garland but have never seen Return to Oz. Return to Oz takes place where the original left off. Except that Dorothy is stuck in a mental hospital. She escapes and one way or another ends up back in Oz with her talking chicken. (Please don't judge the movie prematurly just because it has a talking chicken.) When we see Oz we find that the yellow brick road is smashed and destroyed, the Emerald City is in shambles, and all of Dorothy's friends are turned to stone. That's as far as I'll go, because that's all the premise you need to know before you actually see the movie. This movie is ingenious in so many ways. It revolutionized claymation, and special effects, the costumes are out of this world, and the adventure that Dorothy is apart of is indescribable. Return to Oz is deffinitly way more darker than the original. Very gothic, with a sense of tension that keeps building until the final climax. Please, if you have respect for the movie genre, don't prejudge this classic movie that has finally been re-released. Because not only will it entertain you, but if you happen to have a younger sibling who is singing the yellow brick road song over and over, show em' Return to Oz and watch their face turn white. Enjoy.

2013-05-15 23:11:30

NOT a Happy-Go-Lucky Sing-Along

A lot of people have problems with RETURN TO OZ, and most of them stem from watching the MGM version of THE WIZARD OF OZ too many times. Let's get things settled right from the outset: if you are looking for another singing Oz where absolutely nothing horrible really happens, RETURN TO OZ is not for you. RETURN TO OZ is a much darker interpretation of the beloved fairyland, and perhaps just a bit closer to something that L. Frank Baum and Ruth Plumly Thompson would appreciate.The story centers around Dorothy returning to Oz to find all of her friends in trouble from both Mombi and the Nome King. New characters join Dorothy in her travels from the Emerald City to the Nome King's Mountain, including Billina the Kansas farm-hen, Tik-Tok, the Royal Army of Oz, Jack Pumpkinhead, and the Gump. Fans of the Oz books will love the fact that these characters all closely resemble the way John R. Neill envisioned them. (There's even a scene containing such famed Oz celebrities as Scraps the Patchwork Girl, the Frogman, Shaggy Man, the Braided Man of Pyramid Mountain, Notta Bit More the clown, and even Ojo and Unc Nunkie in the background of one shot. Also, see if you can spot the Li-Mon-Eag in the opening Emerald City shots!)The plotline is a strange mix of THE LAND OF OZ and OZMA OF OZ, and certain elements are intertwined to make the story flow a bit more. Mombi and Princess Langwidere have been merged to form one character; the wheelers are working for Mombi instead of being merely mischeivious characters.How is it content-wise? Granted, parents should view first and determine whether their children will be able to handle some of the more frightening scenes in the movie, which mainly center around Dorothy in Kansas at a creepy hospital and when she is dealing with the headless Mombi. There is no language, no sexual content of any kind. The main concern is the scary factor.This particular edition of the DVD contains some extras, including an interview with Fairuza Balk (Dorothy), TV spots from the 80's, and the original trailer. The movie is also dubbed in French. The DVD design is a little tacky, with the Tin Woodman on the front cover, who isn't even in the movie for a minute, and Dorothy looks incredibly odd on the cover and DVD label.So if you're looking for a great fantasy movie (for the kids or for yourself) or if you're a fan of the books, then stop singing along with Judy Garland and pick up RETURN TO OZ for a thrilling couple hours of Oz.

2013-05-15 14:12:15

Different then Wizard of Oz....AWESOME!

This review is from: Return to Oz (DVD) I seen this movie many moons ago and have always been very fond of it. I bought it on VHS several years ago and recently replaced the VHS with DVD. I'm not much of a movie collector, have maybe 30 in my collection, but this one was a must!I feel this movie is very different from WOZ...it's much less corny/cheesy and more 'dark'. Dorothy escapes from a mental hospital and ends up back in OZ which is in disarray. Dorothy needs to save OZ from the evil witch/queen that has several different identities (heads...LOL). I wouldn't let a young child watch this, might be a little to scary for them.Anyway, I recommend this movie to any OZ or Fairuza Balk fan....well worth buying for your collection. Very interesting movie!Andrea

2013-05-15 06:17:57

A Risk Well Taken

I don't envy anyone electing to make a sequel to one of the most beloved films of all time. That said, Walter Murch has done a superb job filming two of the other Oz books. This film is well acted, and by turns funny and suspenseful. It doesn't quite have the emotional tug that the original film had, but it succeeds on almost every level. Fairuza Balk in her film debut, brings the right psychological weight to every line, and Nicol Williamson and Jean Marsh are genuinely terrifying villains, both in the early "real" sequence set in a mental hospital and in the Oz sequences. I loved the talking hen with a penchant for stating the obvious.This film is incredibly beautiful to look at.David Shire's musical score is really imaginative, from romance to terror to ragtime.

2013-05-13 15:54:01

A Haunting Film

I first saw this movie around six years old. I know most people would advise against that, but I was entranced. I had been in love with the Oz story since age two, and seeing Return To Oz was inevitable. It is definitely a frightening movie, but for me, I think because I had just gone through the death of my sister, it was very therapeutic. I identified with Dorothy's struggles and the dark cloud hanging over her home. I am amazed, watching it now, at the sheer quality of the film technically, the animatronics and claymation are incredible. (I really believe you couldn't get much better quality today even with the high-tech effects available. It is also worthy to note that the occasional place in the movie where you notice the special effects creates a deeper connection to it--a connection much harder to receive with the over-glossy special effects of today.) The score gives me chills every time I hear it--it is beyond brilliant. Looking at the types of instruments this movie used--I realize how much it shaped my evolving musical tastes (such as the lute-like instrument used by Mombi and the violin singing the main theme). I loved the Oz books by L. Frank Baum and I have always appreciated the care the produders and director took to bring his vision to the screen. I love the Judy Garland version, but Return to Oz captures the heart and soul of the books. I highly recommend this film--to children seven and up (with discretion), and any adults interested in children's literature or fantasy. It's themes are family oriented, and it truly expresses a childlike heroism in a humble and haunting way.

Sarah 2013-05-13 05:05:04

Oh my goodness - please never again!

First off I just could not stand this movie. After seeing it I sat theretrying to think of why I really had this strong feeling of dislike for it.One sure fire reason is that the movie never should have tried to connectthis movie to "The Wizard of Oz." Maybe the film could have worked betterifthe left the whole Oz thing out and made it a completely different movie.Idon't know what more to say 'cause I am at a loss for words when it comestothis awful movie.

2013-05-11 03:04:30

A brilliant work--but for adults, not children

This review is from: Return to Oz (DVD) The great film editor walter Murch got the chance in the early Eighties to make a spectacular film compressing the first two sequels to THE WONDERFUL WIZARD OF OZ, THE MAGICAL LAND OF OZ and OZMA OF OZ, as a tribute to the Baum books he loved. The film was a popular flop, given that almost everyone who took their children to it expected it to be a sequel to the famous M-G-M film version of 1939. (In Murch's version, there are no songs and the carryover characters from the first film--Dorothy, the Scarecrow, the Tin Man and the Lion---look like the original illustrations of them by John Neill and W. W. Denslow rather than the way they were portrayed in the 1939 film.) But the film has endured as a cult classic, a master of the film art's tribute to the books and illustrations he loved from his youth.It's an amazingly beautiful film, but it would be insanity to show it to small children. It starts out with Uncle Henry and Aunt Em, rebuilding their house and farm from the cyclone, take Dorothy, who has been speaking of wild stories of cities made of emeralds and scarecrows who talk, to Topeka for electroshock therapy. The asylum they bring her to is a terrifying chamber of horrors, and when she escapes it for Oz she is confronted with incredible other visual terrors, such as the lunatic Wheelers and the Princess Mombi (a variant of both the old witch Mombi and the Princess Langwidere from the Oz books), who exchanges pretty heads for her body the way other women change dresses. The scene where Mombi's headless body chases Dorothy through her chamber of heads (as the other disembodied heads scream in horror) is one of the scariest things I can imagine a child ever viewing.But this is really a film for adults, and the creepiness of its details add to the mature viewers' pleasure. The sets and costumes are spectacular, the cast includes such accomplished actors as Piper Laurie (as Aunt Em), Jean Marsh (Mombi) and Nicol Williamson (the Nome King), and the David Shire score is one of the most beautiful film scores ever written--period. As for Dorothy herself, the producers chose such a unusually haunting Dorothy (with marvelous multicolored eyes and a curious plaintive quality to her voice) that the actress, Fairuza Balk, has spun a strong acting career from her early cult fame in this part.

Scars_Remain 2013-05-10 14:14:49

Better than The Wizard of Oz

When I was a child, I was absolutely captivated by a 1939 film by thename of "The Wizard of Oz." I'm now 19 years old and I've just finishedviewing its follow-up which I feel is the better of the both of them. Alot of people will disagree with me but whatever.The great thing about this film is that it combines a lot of differentgenres into the story. Fantasy, Mystery, Family, Adventure, Action, andeven some Horror elements play awesome roles in this film. Another plusis that it isn't a musical. Sorry, but I'm not a big musical fan.Do your self a huge favor, sit down and see this movie. I promise youwon't be disappointed.

2013-05-08 23:28:13

My kinda Oz

I'll probably be stoned for saying this, but I've never been a fan of Judy Garland's The Wizard of Oz. I don't think it's a bad movie, but the sunny, sing a long disposition and sugary tone made my teeth ache. I'm far from a "dark" person, but too much happy gets on my nerves. Return to Oz is where it's at for me. I was born 2 years after it's theatrical release, but fell in love with it at the age of 5 and consider it one of the best fantasy films ever. First things first, this isn't a sequel to the 1939 musical. The only things they share in common are 1) ruby slippers are used instead of the book's silver and 2) people in Oz mirror those in Kansas. That's it. Return to Oz sticks closer to L. Frank Baum's books (a mashup of The Marvelous Land of Oz and Ozma of Oz, to be exact) so the story is given a darker backdrop. No breaking out into song on this one. 6 months after the tornado that transported Dorothy and her dog Toto to Oz, the little girl suffers from insomnia and talks incessantly about her adventures there. She becomes convinced that Billina, one of the farm hens, helped her find a key sent by her Oz friends on a shooting star. Aunt Em (as well as Uncle Henry to a lesser degree) grows concerned for her niece's sanity and takes her to see a Dr. Worley to administer electro-shock therapy to cure her of her "waking dreams", once and for all. Dorothy discovers that the hospital is really a poorly run mental institution with damaged patients locked in the basement. She's saved by a mysterious girl her own age and is transported back to Oz by way of a river during a thunderstorm. She wakes up inside a chicken coop with a talking Billina, but quickly discovers that Oz ain't what it used to be. The yellow brick road is in shambles, the Emerald City is an "emerald-less" wasteland, and all of it's residents have been turned to stone. It's up to Dorothy to set things right with the help of new friends Tik Tok (the mechanical man), Jack Pumpkinhead, and the oddly constructed Gump. Her new foes are the head collecting baddie Mombi, the freakish Wheelers, and The Gnome King who's stolen the emeralds as well as the Scarecrow.Fairuza Balk does a phenomenal job as Dorothy. Not only does she fit the character's age (about 9 or 10), but her Dorothy is a combination of fearful, curious, and determined to save her friends. Jean Marsh is downright creepy as the cold, unfeeling Mombi and Nicol Williamson's Gnome King is calculating and maniacal. The sets are colorful and surreal, but also lifelike. So much like Baum's original vision for Oz. The animation isn't the best out there compared to today's standards, but not too bad considering it's from the mid-80s. I wouldn't recommend the movie for kids under the age of 6 or 7 (didn't scare me at all as a 5 year old though), but anyone older should be able to handle it. So grab a snack from the lunch pail tree, avoid the Deadly Desert, and enjoy a fantasy movie that'll keep kids and adults satisfied.

2013-05-08 11:39:12

so glad it's re-released.

i first saw this movie when i was 5... my mom hated it, thought it would scare me. i loved it... last year i got it in my head that i wanted to watch it again and couldn't find it anywhere. I finally found it to rent and watched it like 5 times before i brought it back. My boyfriend thought i was demented. i'm glad i can buy it now and watch it whenever i want.

johcafra 2013-05-06 21:27:31

Not Your Grandfather's MGM Musical

--or your father's. Or from MGM. Or even a musical. But I list thisamong my few cinematic guilty pleasures, essentially for the followingreasons:It hews closer to the OZ that L. Frank Baum intended in his many books.Perhaps not as close as some purists would like, but at least theeffort was made and showed on-screen. Budgetary constraints doubtlessnecessitated the melding of plots from at least two of Baum's books andthe altered though muted depiction of some characters we'd hithertoseen dancing and singing around Judy Garland.Pre-CGI FX by some folks who worked on the James Bond and Supermanflicks, Muppet Labs, and the Will Vinton Studios, they of theCalifornia Raisins. A genuine treat!Always a pleasure to see Jean Marsh and Nicol Williamson. Watch hisperformance very closely when Dorothy Gale first meets The Nome King.David Shire's musical score is excellent.And I just dig those Wheelers. You'll wish you could be like them too.A bit of trivia: First, Walter Murch is an Oscar-winning editor andsound man. He directed precisely one feature-length film. If you wantto study a feature-length film directed by an editor and sound man,this is it. If you want to compare with the works of a director whopays far more attention than industry average to editing and sound,Peter Weir's the man.The story's told that early on in the production Murch realized whathe'd gotten himself into, and friends of his from his work on priorfilms showed up and graciously asked to help, among them George Lucasand Francis Ford Coppola.And, inveterate credit-watcher that I am, one of the storyboard artistslater directed The Nightmare Before Christmas and a puppeteer laterdirected The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, on which I've alsocommented as an IMDb user.In a phrase, this sequel will definitely surprise, stick to and grow onyou. One result is that you likely won't regard chickens and eggs inquite the same way, ever again. Enjoy!

2013-05-06 15:10:43

Absolutly Wonderful!

This movie is based on L. Frank Baum's second and third books "The Land of Oz" and "Ozma of Oz" It is a very good movie, but if you are not at least a little bit familiar with the books you may get lost. Although this movie is based on the books and not the MGM classic Dorothy still has her magical Ruby Slippers, which in the books were only silver shoes! All and all it is a movie any OZ buff should be shore to see!

2013-05-06 10:22:40

One of the Best Disney Movies!

I thank Roy Disney,Will Vinton and George Lucas for Creating This Spooky But Fantastic Film I Like Since "Star Wars" and "Roger Rabbit"! Princess Mombi and the Gnome King are Perfect Disney Villains! Dorthey Hugging Tic-Toc is So HeartWarming to Mothers and their Childrens! and I Love Happy Endings! the Special Effects Is So Cool! Thank You!

2013-05-06 00:05:09

fantastic movie

Awesome movie. Product was shipped quick and came in excellent condition. Very happy. thank you!