A Lenda de Oz

As I suspected from its origins, this film is uninspired, unoriginal, and mostly humorless. Apparently it is doing poorly at the box office-- and rightly so. What is missing is the sense of humanity and wonder that infuses L Frank Baums's classic books (especially the first few) and the MGM classic film based on his first book. I think the problem with this film is that it is based on the rather mediocre "Dorothy of Oz" written by a Roger Baum, a great grandson of L Frank Baum. "Dorothy of Oz" has the same deficiencies as this film: lack of universality, originality, understanding of humanity or appeal to adults. Because of these deficiencies, even children will find this film as forgettable as Roger Baum's book. Instead of true originality we are given some new "cute" characters like Wiser the owl. It can't just "get by" on cuteness or nostalgia for the original Oz story. It just doesn't work. Successful children's books and films are driven by vision and heart: this film (and the book it's based on) have none.

I became aware of this film even before it was made, when people soliciting investors for the film contacted me. They were surprised to learn that someone actually knew about L. Frank Baum and his wonderful books (beyond the MGM film that almost everyone has seen). They appeared to believe that anything connected to the Wizard of Oz was golden, and were outraged by the idea that Roger Baum's book is uninspired and that a film based on it was doomed to fail.

Unfortunately, in the end the producers were not able to rise above the unoriginal "Dorothy of Oz." I feel sorry for whoever did invest in this boring debacle. I recommend that you skip this film, no matter the age of your children. Instead see a classic: rent Pinocchio, MGM's "Wizard of Oz," or Disney's "Mary Poppins" each of which has the heart that this film lacks.

-Legends Of Oz: Dorothy's Return is the animated film based on the book Dorothy of OZ, which sees Dorothy return to Oz to help save it from The Jester. Along the way, she meets new friends and reunited with old friends.

-I'll be honest, the only reason I watched it was because I love Oz, but I actually was not disappointed.

-The story itself is a lot like the original. The ending doesn't matter as much as the journey. That said, many elements of the story, and overall film, feel really young. I know it's an animated film, but still.

-The pace is pretty good.

-The voice cast was good, but I loved Kelsey Grammar as Tin Man! -The characters are not that deep and have feel made towards younger audiences. The villain, Jester, was pretty funny. I hates Scarecrow though. He was the worst.

-The music was nice. There were some musical songs to it, which I really liked. However, there were only like 3 and they were not unified in style.

-I loved Oz. It was pretty and nostalgic! -It's PG.

-So Legends Of Oz: Dorothy's Return has some fun, entertaining elements mixed with some younger elements that are definitely for kids. I will say it's not a bad Nexflix/Redbox watch though. 7/10.

I find it hard to trust the 1st dozen or so reviews on some films found at this sight. Of course I could be mistaken but, I saw this film and found it to be full of nonsense and trite cliché dialog. With the mega cast that participated in the making of this film I expected a much better and more interesting story to be explored in this sequel classic.

As I watched the various characters enter the beginning scenes I felt they were very cardboard like. The few comedic scenes seemed almost too childish even for children. As to the animation, it was not to my liking. It seemed that it was taken from generic Saturday morning cartoons. It was bland and even boring to a degree.

Lastly I noticed that production costs of this animated film were surprisingly much more than I expected it to be. Nearly a million bucks a minute. I felt that for that kind of mega bucks this should have been a higher quality of product. The next few weeks will show weather the movie goers buy and or embrace this less than stellar movie.

Not every children's Animated film can be a "Frozen" or a "Finding Nemo" but they should at least aim for that quality and level of product.

Fortunately I have two little kids now or I would have never watched this movie. In addition, I never heard this movie was coming out or anything about it until we all saw it on Netflix.

My kids aged 9 and 2 1/2 years of age. They both love animated movies to death and have seen a lot of them. Animated movies are not my cup of tea, but because they are playing all the time in the house I see, hear, and remember the movies even though I am watching them indirectly.

I was searching for yet another animated movie and I stumbled upon this one. Being older, I am a fan of the original Wizard of Oz movie from the 1930's having seen it a million times growing up. It looked interesting so we all watched it. Now for the critique:

2. The Story (ebb & flow): It seemed like a logical sequel to the original live action movie that I love, although the sequel is animated. I thought it was easy to understand and wasn't illogical like some other reviewers stated. As an adult and an experienced movie watcher, I thought the story was well written and easy to understand. The fault lies in the source material. Most young people today do not know the story of the Wizard of Oz so they can't connect to it.

3. Characters. Once again, as in the fault of the story, the characters are not recognizable to the target audience: kids. Yes the adults will know about the Wizard of Oz, but the core audience will see it as an original movie. No kids watching the movie will know about the Lion's courage, the Tin Man's heart, or the Scarecrow's brain. Their background is unknown and the movie does not make an effort to rectify the situation. The only character in the movie that you end up learning a lot about is the Jester and only because he talks about himself and his past near the beginning of the film. To me thats a bad idea. Why? Because kids should know about the good characters, not the bad ones. The good characters are the ones you want your children to connect with and feel sympathy for, not the evil ones. I felt they focused too much on the Jester character and not enough on characters that mattered.

4. Animation. The animation quality wasn't bad. Was it the best I've ever seen? No, but it wasn't the worst either. I would say it was good animation that probably could have benefited with a little more financial resources allocated to it.

5. Musical parts (songs): This is where the movie shines. I felt the songs in the movie were of high quality and very catchy. If this were a successful Disney movie, the songs from this movie would be sung by every boy and girl like what happened in Frozen. Frozen had like two or three catchy songs, where Legends of Oz had four or five that would be popular. Of course this is my opinion and I'm not a fan of musicals.

6. Excitement & Entertainment. This is where the moneys made for a movie. Did you feel you got your moneys worth? The movies strengths were its musical numbers and the good story to support the songs. If they had instead used the songs in a more higher profile animated movie, it would have been a better idea.

Bottom Line: An enjoyable movie that needs to watched more than once to really appreciate the strengths of the movie: it's songs. I bought the DVD!

This movie was AWFUL. None of my 4 children enjoyed this film (ages 5-13), and one fell asleep (we went at 11 am so he wasn't tired). The animation seemed cheap, like a direct to DVD type movie. Barbie movies are better animation than this movie was and that says a lot. The songs were random and about the oddest things. The characters made no sense and interacted in a bizarrely unemotional and unconnected way. Not one character was interesting, funny, deep, layered, anything. I didn't really recognize any of the voices of the "big name" actors who voiced the parts, save for Lea Michelle, who sounds like she is whining/crying all the time. And of course Martin Short as the strangest, least scary yet most highly disturbing villain ever. Whomever is giving this 10 stars is obviously paid to do so (there are people who are paid to give good reviews on movies before they come out to generate interest and get people to the theater) and/or possibly on uppers. I recommend not seeing this in the theater, save your money and if you must, rent it on Redbox for $1.29 or whatever. One of the worst kids movies I've seen in a long time- and I've seen 'em all.