Cheap Return to Oz (DVD) (Walter Murch) Price

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Customer Reviews of Return to Oz

The story takes place after the twister devastated the Gale house. Dorothy (Fairuza Balk) is depressed, and no one wants to believe her stories about her trip to Oz. Finally, in hopes of curing her of her delusions, Auntie Em (Piper Laurie) takes Dorothy to see a psychiatrist in the big city. The psychiatrist convinces Auntie Em that all Dorothy needs is a bit of shock treatment to make her better.

Auntie Em leaves Dorothy in the Doctor's care, but before he can give her the treatment, a fierce electrical storm cuts off power to the hospital. Dorothy escapes with the help of a mysterious girl, and gets swept down a raging river. She winds up back in Oz where she if befriended by a talking hen, Jack Pumpkinhead, and the robotic Tick Tock. Oz has fallen on bad times, overrun by the Gnome King (Nicol Williamson, happily chewing the scenery) and his ally, the evil Princess Moombi (Jean Marsh, who gives a fun performance). It is up to Dorothy and her friends to restore Oz to what once it was.

The real stars of this movie are the design and the puppetry. The movie is a visual feast. However, it is also slow going. I can't imagine kids sitting through it easily. It's hard enough for adults. The pacing is awkward and Fairuza Balk (in her screen debut) doesn't have the charaisma to be sufficiently entertaining to keep the viewer's interest in the slow parts.

It's hard to strongly recommend this movie to casual viewers, but those who enjoy beautiful set design, effective camera work, excellent special effects, and superb animation may be sufficiently entertained.

The DVD allows you to choose between letterbox and fullscreen presentation. It also includes an introduction by Fairuza Balk (she doesn't have anything terribly interesting to say, unfortunately) and an interview featurette. I suspect that people who enjoy the movie for its technical achievements will be disappointed by the featurette, especially if they are seeking more insight into the work that went into making the movie.

If you enjoy this movie, you may also like "James and the Giant Peach", "The Iron Giant", "The Nightmare before Christmas", and "The Wizard of Speed and Time".

(C)2001 Joe Edkin

Good & gets better with each viewing
An engaging movie, if a bit disquieting, it's not the best chaser to the 1939 MGM/Garland production "The Wizard of Oz". However, it does give a nod to the latter while staying closer to Baum's source material.

"Return" has a definite dark, bittersweet character that keeps one coming back for repeat viewings, with lush sets and not too much Disney silliness; the main Wheeler is way overdone, though.

Fairuza Balk is well-cast as Dorothy, and refreshingly the other Oz characters lack the vaudeville heritage and limitations of the MGM cast. The naturalistic acting and settings of mid-1980's sensibilities dominate. Plain optical printing, Will Vinton's claymation, some clever animatronics and puppetry lend visual reality to action that has yet to be matched by 17 years of CGI trickery.

The only downside of the DVD edition is large-margin matting in widescreen mode - it's not been properly letterboxed. One can view the full-frame 4:3 version but then it's cropped. Maybe a later edition will fix this. The source print was clean; nice for a change with older films.

Definitely recommended!

Scary . . . careful with kids
I haven't seen this DVD edition yet so I can't really comment on it, but I just wanted to put in one word about the movie. I saw it at age 5 or so when it was in the theaters, and it scared the stuffing out of me. There were a few parts that gave me nightmares and still make me shiver. It's probably not as bad as I've made it out to be, but do use caution letting younger kids watch this.