Legends of Oz: Dorothy's Return (2014)

Too much of everything

if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

The first must-see film of the year.

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

My fiancé and I can be cartoon masochists. Sometimes we watch questionable animated movies out of morbid curiosity and enjoy making hun of hem, but this movie was so bad it wasn't even enjoyable to make fun of. It looked like it was animated in the 90s, the music was forgettable and the characters were horribly one dimensional and stupid. I wouldn't have even enjoyed this as a child. What were they thinking? They spent all their money on voice actors and none on the film or story writing. How this ever got theatrical release is beyond me! What an awful awful movie!

The definitive version of Oz may be the Judy Garland film, but it's spin-offs, related sequels, always seem to fade out faster than one would come to expect. Why is that? I've never quite understood that myself - could it be there isn't much need for a continuation? And what makes a good continuation for Oz films to continue, besides simply reading the books? I may never know the answers to these questions, but I can certainly say Legends of Oz certainly wasn't a failure by any means. With a spirited and lively cast the film is full of energy, never missing a beat. While the cold opening of the film setting us up for what lay ahead seems to be an interesting one, I did feel we were thrust into the film's plot fairly quickly without time to really grasp who some of these characters are. It's never a good thing to tell us "here's who they are, and this is what is happening" in less than the first five minutes, a little bit of insight could've made me grasp the would-be Jester (or the real estate fellow in the beginning) a bit better.While it's true the animation might not feel completely up to standard to Dreamworks or Blue Sky or Pixar, it's certainly not bad in my opinion. When compared to the last movie I reviewed, 'Sir Billi', I think we have ourselves to thank it was blessed with some decent enough technicians behind the scenes.While it's certainly not a bad film it's far from terrible as critics everywhere may say. Maybe it's because Dorothy looks like Anna from Frozen, or the Lion simply lacks what any big guy character is usually voice acted by... Patrick Warburton.

This is supposed to be based on a book written by L. Frank Baum's grandson. Congrats to him for cashing in on granddad's legacy, I guess. The new characters are entirely forgettable so I won't bother discussing them. Why is Dorothy wearing cowgirl boots? Is that a thing? The opening credits go on way too long. The animation isn't the greatest. The backgrounds are flat and cheap. At times the movie looks like a video game made ten years ago. The voice work is passable but the actors can't make this work. Martin Short is having a field day but his enthusiasm is not contagious. The songs are very bland. Think 'Christian pop music' bland. The song about candy had me questioning why I was watching a movie clearly meant for toddlers. Man, it's pretty insufferable. I kept checking the time and thinking about my life choices. Look, if you're a parent of little ones, maybe they'll like it. If you're an adult who isn't very bright, maybe you'll like it. The rest of you, I would suggest you avoid this. It's not something most adults or teens will like. It's childish, corny, and boring.

So my mom,my brother,and myself all went to see this film today in the cinemas as the other film we were suppose to see wasn't on until 15:35 and it was too late for us to see it. So we decided to watch Legend of OZ: Dorothy's Return. Now before I start this review I have to say that as a 23 year old woman I absolutely love Animated movies in fact its my favourite movie genre as I love all the effects and effort that is put into making animated movies like Frozen,Tangled,Shrek,The Lion King,whether its Hand-drawn or not I love watching animated movies.So this one I had very low expectations on,I thought it looked stupid and generic and like a film you see going straight to DVD as it was like a Barbie film,but I was wrong,now its not the best film of all time,but its entertaining for the kids as well as the adults who are big kids at heart.SO what is this about well let's dive in. Dorothy Graine( voiced by and sung by Lea Michele from Glee in her first animated debut) is whisked away to OZ once again thanks to a magical rainbow that transports her and her dog to OZ as an evil Jester wants to take over by making puppets out of real people. SO Scarecrow insists on Dorothy's help and she agrees. Here she meets a obese owl who helps her and later a marshmallow guard(voiced by Hugh Dancy who also sings in this movie as he sung in the 2004 film Ella Enchanted)who arrests Dorothy and the Owl as they ate candy(btw did anyone think that the candy scene was like Sugar Rush in Wreck It Ralph)and when the marshmallow guard finds out that Dorothy is known as the greatest person ever to defeat the wicked witch he agrees to let her and the owl go. So they go off to defeat the jester(voiced by Martin Short who was in Barbie's Princess & The Pauper and he as in the 2003 Disney film Treasure Planet)who is the wicked witches brother. So can Dorothy get Glinda(Bernadete Peters from Anastasia as she voiced Sophie in that film) the white fairy back? and undo the spell that turned her into a puppet?Overall I found this film sweet and nice. The animation is nice to look at,the backgrounds look great and the voice acting was good too(Dan Akyrod from Ghost busters as the Scarecrow,Kelsey Grammar who also worked with Bernadette Peters in Anastasia and he was Sideshow Bob in The Simpsons,and James Belushi from Curly Sue as the Scarecrow are also in this film). The music is great(Bryan Adams who is a singer who did the likes of Spirit of the Stallion and Racing Stripes) provides the music for this film. If you got kids than this is for you,or if you consider yourself an animated fan like me than check it out. For those who hate musicals and sugary sweet cartoons avoid.6.5/10