The Wizard of Oz is one of the most beloved films of all time, and has captured the imaginations of audiences for generations. Set in a world of talking scarecrows, flying monkeys and wicked witches, an animated offshoot of The Wizard of Oz doesn’t seem like such a bad idea. That is unless said animated offshoot seems constructed out of bad ideas. Enter Legends of Oz: Dorothy’s Return.
The movie is as uninspired as its title. An evil Jester – who happens to be the younger brother of the late Wicked Witch – has taken control of the Emerald City, leaving the Scarecrow, the Tin Man and the Formerly-Cowardly Lion to summon Dorothy back to Oz to save the day. That’s about the size of it.
Should you actually wanted to see more of the Scarecrow, Tin Man and Lion, Return to Oz is sure to give them a backseat in the story. They spend the majority of the movie trapped in Emerald City. Instead, Dorothy and Toto are joined by a quartet of forgettable characters: A rotund owl named Wiser, a marshmallow man named Marshal Mallow, a porcelain doll princess, and a talking tree who allows Dorothy and friends to make him into a boat. To call them Oz’s B-team would be more than generous.
The bland story and forgettable cast are ‘complimented’ by a number of musical numbers that range from insipid to irritating. All of them ooze a ‘written-on-a-napkin’ quality. At the very least, their sheer forgettability will likely prevent them from getting stuck in your head.
Just in case the movie wasn’t cardboard enough, the animation looks more along the lines of a 2001 direct-to-video release than a 2014 theatrical animated feature. The character designs also showcase a lack of inspiration. The entire visual look of Legends of Oz is aged and boring.
If there’s anything of merit to be found here, it’s probably in the movie’s opening moments, which shows the devastation caused to Dorothy’s hometown in Kansas from the iconic twister that sent her to Oz in the first place. It’s nothing emotional (and even it gets ruined by one of the aforementioned songs), but it’s somewhat interesting to see the ‘Oz tornado’ treated as a disaster and not just a transport to another world.
But that’s really searching hard for a redeeming quality, isn’t it? The long and the short of it is that Legends of Oz: Dorothy’s Return is a bad movie. It feels entirely thrown together, rushed, and creatively empty. Within minutes you may find yourself wishing you had a pair of ruby slippers so you could click them together and whisk you away from this movie.
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Wizard Dojo 