The Witches of Oz

The Witches of Oz – oh dear ! This is a Children's FILM. Some great favourite stars of mine in this, Christopher Lloyd, Jeffrey Combs, Noel Thurman, Lans Henriksen, and the gorgeous Eliza Swenson (aka Victoria Mazze) . If you're expecting a film with lots of modern effects as seen for example in "The Season of The Witch" (Nicolas Cage) then prepare to be disappointed. When fights happen, eg: Tin Man and baddie, no teeth are spat out, no bruises seen, no cuts, no grazes, nothing of this nature throughout the entire film. Not even from wand-plasma. The story is tied-in cleverly from the original, and the individual star actors acting is good as usual and expected, but somehow this film just doesn't gel. Doubtless kids will like it, esp girls I think. But I have to say that I observe that many computer games that children have seem to be more blood and gutsy. I enjoyed the modern "Alice in Wonderland" film much more. Not sure if it was an intentional plant but Christopher Lloyd is seen driving a Yellow Cab in this too. Shades of "Taxi" ? In the end what kept me watching was those beautiful big brown Mexican eyes on the pretty face of the lead Paulie Rojas (Dorothy Gale). In short it was a bit painful to sit through this LONG film, and pretty poor overall I would say.

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.

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.

I have never, ever written a review for anything on the internet, but after watching this poor attempt of entertainment, I felt compelled to air my views. Never in my life have I watched such utter rubbish and desperately wanted to gain the three and a bit hours of my life back...until now. I really enjoy watching films about magic, witchcraft, and those that take inspiration from old classics, so I thought this would make for some interesting, easy viewing. I was so wrong. Where to begin???

I guess I can start with my main issue; the fact that all the way through, Dorothy made me cringe and almost retch. What a PATHETIC character. The child version of her made me so angry with how weepy and pathetic and wooden she was, that I thanked God she was only on for a few minutes as I might have actually killed myself. The adult Dorothy needed a slap and a personality. I thought the Walton's 'goody goody' attitude to life was vomit inducing...until now. Why cast an actress that can't speak with any feeling, or engage with other characters? Why cast an actress who can't show any expression in her face and who's voice can only just be detected before going off into decibels only dogs can hear? I hope the creators understand what they have done and what a BIG mistake they made in casting her. In fact none of the actors in this were particularly decent, bar Christopher Lloyd, who I suspect is suffering with losing shreds of dignity from being a part of this.

The effects, sorry, 'effects', were SHOCKING. Why even bother?!

The writing was unbelievably horrendous also...you know, the more I write/rant about this, the more I find things I hated about it and wonder what I was even thinking watching more than 5 minutes of it. Maybe I was naive enough to believe a promising premise might actually deliver, and that it would redeem itself. BUT NO. I could literally go on for pages with what I dislike about it but I'll try keep it short.

If you have a few hours and fancy catching a film, PLEASE don't choose this one. You will seriously regret it. It's not even so bad it's funny...!!!!

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.