The Witches of Oz

This is a review of the close to 3 hour miniseries and not the considerably shorter theatrical release. The Witches of Oz is written and directed by Leigh Scott, a man who cut his teeth working at The Asylum, and if you're familiar with their work then alarm bells should already be ringing. It sees an older Dorothy realising that the stories she writes of Oz are actually all true, and now the wicked witch is in our world to try and take over. AAAHHHH! This film is both ambitious and terrible for the most part. The first episode deals with painfully unfunny slapstick and cartoon caricatures. The second episode turned into an all out battle and tried to be a lot darker. The film has its ups and downs. The likes of Lloyd and Henriksen give great performances as they usually do, especially Hendrcksen who has a lot of experience in no budget territory. But we also have two Lord Of The Rings alumni trying hard not to die of embarrassment on screen. It's hard to tell with Astin and Boyd whether they are simply giving bad performances on purpose or if Jackson was just a much better director when dealing with actors. No doubt these two looked around the set and couldn't believe what their (I'm guessing by now, former) agents had gotten them into. Still, it's hard not to admire Scott's ambition and vision. He uses practical and computer effects well, and some of the designs are pretty cool, especially the Tin-Man. It obviously has designs on being a big epic fantasy, but it's impossible to take it seriously. I hear the hour shorter director's cut has better effects and is better concerning the pacing. There's certainly enough to make a child friendly kids TV special, maybe at the 70-80 minute mark, but I wouldn't sit through the whole thing again.

May well be the worst thing that has ever been on TV. Not a soul got the message that in this sort of fantasy everybody has to play it completely straight. They all pancake and smirk knowingly at the camera. They all overact like they were on some crappy Disney kids show. The effects are mostly non existent. When the witches are supposedly fighting the effects are mainly off screen while the actresses wave their arms about with no exertion or effort apparent. There is an awful moment where munchkins are sword fighting and three year olds in a playground would have been more convincing. Dorothy? Well she is so bad that you realise that the only thing that might save this is if she died a horrible death. Direction is appalling. And what dolt's idea was it to have the Lion and Scarecrow play their parts as a bad impression of the actors in the 1939 movie? And the pauses. You keep getting bits where some exposition that you spotted ten minutes ago has to be explained but instead of just getting to the point the scene drags on and on and on and.... You end up screaming at the TV 'Shut up, shut up. I was bored five minutes ago now I just want to die.' The only vaguely good idea is right at the end and they even manage to screw that up. I am only writing this review in the vain hope that it will have some sort of cathartic effect and wipe the memory of this dreadful waste of everyone's time from my mind. If you missed this then thank whatever God you have and take that as a sign that there truly is a merciful God. If not then avoid it like the plague.

The Witches of Oz should had been an interesting and quirky reimagining of The Wizard of Oz story.

It is let down by some muddled storytelling, campy acting and not very good special effects.

Dorothy Gale is a children's author from Kansas. She gets an opportunity from an agent to travel to New York to develop her Oz stories for a movie.

However Dorothy finds out that the stories are based on truth. The events had happened and she and some of her companions had forgotten about their origins when they ended up in the real world.

So one of her friend is the strawman, the other is a lion and even a man of metal later turns up.

A wizard hid a magical word in a book. The word that unleashes huge powers. The book is locked and can only be opened with a very special key.

The wicked witch and Princess Langwidere are after a key that only Dorothy may know about.

This should had been an enjoyable reworking of the Oz books. Two actors from the Lord of the Rings films turn up to add to its fantasy credentials. However it was too long and too uneven. The bad outweighs the good.

Rarely am I moved to write a review here, but this film is simply so execrable that I feel compelled to - especially as the star rating won't appear unless five more reviews are posted, and I feel a duty to my fellow film viewer to save them from this dross.

I am usually open to re-imaginings of classics, e.g. various versions of Alice In Wonderland and A Christmas Carol spring to mind, some more successful than others. I've even seen another re-imagining of Oz that was very different but still pretty good - Tin Man.

This? Awful. Acting either wooden or completely over the top, plot ludicrous and deathly dull. I am surprised and saddened that so many good actors agreed to stake part in this waste of celluloid. A couple of hours of my life that I'll never get back.

Apparently, a review has to be a minimum of ten lines. This precludes the fully descriptive, yet terse, review I had in mind. For this TV limited series, a full review would be, "Garbage!"

Personally, I enjoy the re-imagining of classic stories. In fact, I give a very wide artistic license. In this case, there were some specific problems which I could not overcome. These included:

1. Horrible, stilted, inexcusable writing! Someone took the seed of an idea, crushed it under their heel and then applied Agent Orange to assure its death.

2. Wooden acting! I am usually not that hard to please but in this case, I was truly unsure at many points whether the actress who played Dorothy was being replaced by a wax figure.

3. Cruelty to a dog's career! As I watched, I noted that the dog playing Toto was immobile throughout the series. Perhaps this was done on purpose, to act as a foil to the face frozen lead actress. Still, this is a low point in the career of what may be a talented dog.

4. Horrid effects! This is 2011. The effects in this movie could easily be exceeded by an 8 year old playing on their parents' computer.

I rarely write reviews of television or movies. But this show inspired me to warn you, the potential viewer to avoid it. Do not waste any precious moments of your life on this steaming pile of munchkin excrement.