The Witches of Oz

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.

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.

To start things off, I was not expecting any kind of adaptation or even a re-imagining. Just something decent. I was also dubious though, considering The Witches of Oz was airing on the SyFy Channel, save a few exceptions, a lot of stuff on there is not bothering with in my view.

Thanks to costume and set design that is a notch above to most projects on the SyFy Channel and the appearance of Lance Henrikssen, The Witches of Oz could have been much worse. But in all honesty, is that saying much? Not for me.

Apparently there were over 1,400 visual effects. Okay, that is a sort of impressive number though I don't think The Witches of Oz needed that many. It wasn't the quantity of the effects I was looking to, it was the quality of them. While not as crude as some effects I seen compared to some of the other output that airs on the channel, the quality of the effects I don't think are that good, they are often lacking in clarity and sharpness.

The lighting doesn't help much either. Some scenes are dimly lit and make some of the production values seem flat. As for the story, I liked the idea and I admit I was kind of looking forward to what they were going to do with it, however it didn't engage me, I found The Witches of Oz rather sluggishly paced and also that some scenes dragged on for too long. The characters are not written very well at all, and I cared for very few of them, even Toto.

The writing is also stilted, often in a horrendous sense, the direction is perhaps too relaxed that it becomes rather dull and the acting ranges from overplayed to wooden. The worst offenders in both these categories in my opinion are Sean Astin, trying to give his material and bad material some life but ending up overdoing it quite wildly, and the girl who plays Dorothy, who is incredibly unanimated and wooden. Christopher Lloyd is also criminally underused.

Overall, didn't entirely hate it but it didn't do anything for me, sorry. 3/10 Bethany Cox

Let me start off by saying i have given this crap heap one more extra star than it should get due to being allowed to be shown on TV. That alone is so laughable that it earns the second star.

Also like the front review shows this is by far thee most brilliant attempt at ruining a classic. It's as though Leigh Scott was paid with the strict intention of crapping on a classic.

The cast must of hated the originals sooooo bad that they just felt it was their job to create "The Witches of Oz" A power rangers special lol.

Effects = Terrible, Acting = A joke, Editing = poor, direction = what direction? Overall if a child is entertained by this filth seek immediate attention as you child may be in need of serious help. No seriously the kids wont even have a fighting chance at life if they are exposed to this.

Put it this way i am not one to usually care for leaving IMDb reviews and i am sad enough to be entertained by the likes of "Smallville" and "Supernatural" Even "Vampire Dairies" So i am very easily pleased :D Please do not give any further funding or projects to this production. It seems as though someone made it their life's work to out do Uwe Boll shame on you hehe Oh and whilst kind of being on the subject, Uwe you need your head checked you sell out slime ballo lol

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...!!!!