Leyendas de Oz: El regreso de Dorothy

I'm happy I took my 5 1/2 year old grandson to see this animated feature. It maintained his interest and when it was over he told me how much he liked it. He didn't rate the depth of the characters or the quality of the CG like a lot of adult reviewers have done. The movie was made for them of course. I did not read their reviews before I went to the theater and then was somewhat incensed afterward when I did. When it comes to "cartoons" let's wait for the kids votes to come in before we decide to bury someone's work. As an adult I've found the movie to be quite memorable. There are several segments that are very entertaining, heart warming, and exciting. Overall, Legend's of Oz is a fun movie. Take the kiddies and simply enjoy the show.

As I suspected from its origins, this film is uninspired, unoriginal, and mostly humorless. Apparently it is doing poorly at the box office-- and rightly so. What is missing is the sense of humanity and wonder that infuses L Frank Baums's classic books (especially the first few) and the MGM classic film based on his first book. I think the problem with this film is that it is based on the rather mediocre "Dorothy of Oz" written by a Roger Baum, a great grandson of L Frank Baum. "Dorothy of Oz" has the same deficiencies as this film: lack of universality, originality, understanding of humanity or appeal to adults. Because of these deficiencies, even children will find this film as forgettable as Roger Baum's book. Instead of true originality we are given some new "cute" characters like Wiser the owl. It can't just "get by" on cuteness or nostalgia for the original Oz story. It just doesn't work. Successful children's books and films are driven by vision and heart: this film (and the book it's based on) have none.

I became aware of this film even before it was made, when people soliciting investors for the film contacted me. They were surprised to learn that someone actually knew about L. Frank Baum and his wonderful books (beyond the MGM film that almost everyone has seen). They appeared to believe that anything connected to the Wizard of Oz was golden, and were outraged by the idea that Roger Baum's book is uninspired and that a film based on it was doomed to fail.

Unfortunately, in the end the producers were not able to rise above the unoriginal "Dorothy of Oz." I feel sorry for whoever did invest in this boring debacle. I recommend that you skip this film, no matter the age of your children. Instead see a classic: rent Pinocchio, MGM's "Wizard of Oz," or Disney's "Mary Poppins" each of which has the heart that this film lacks.

-Legends Of Oz: Dorothy's Return is the animated film based on the book Dorothy of OZ, which sees Dorothy return to Oz to help save it from The Jester. Along the way, she meets new friends and reunited with old friends.

-I'll be honest, the only reason I watched it was because I love Oz, but I actually was not disappointed.

-The story itself is a lot like the original. The ending doesn't matter as much as the journey. That said, many elements of the story, and overall film, feel really young. I know it's an animated film, but still.

-The pace is pretty good.

-The voice cast was good, but I loved Kelsey Grammar as Tin Man! -The characters are not that deep and have feel made towards younger audiences. The villain, Jester, was pretty funny. I hates Scarecrow though. He was the worst.

-The music was nice. There were some musical songs to it, which I really liked. However, there were only like 3 and they were not unified in style.

-I loved Oz. It was pretty and nostalgic! -It's PG.

-So Legends Of Oz: Dorothy's Return has some fun, entertaining elements mixed with some younger elements that are definitely for kids. I will say it's not a bad Nexflix/Redbox watch though. 7/10.

Going into "Legends of OZ", my expectations were already quite low due to a lot of negative reaction from critics and Oz fans. Having now seen the film, I was pleasantly surprised by some of it. I found the writing and concept of the film to be quite good. The film managed to be funny when it needed to be and was even able to pull off a few heartfelt moments. The cast of new characters who become Dorothy's traveling companions, as well as the new villain, all were able to hold my attention and deserve their place in the Oz canon. All the vocal talents in the film, particularly Martin Short & Megan Hilty, are pretty much spot-on with their interpretations of the characters in Oz, even the iconic ones we've come to know and love. The design of Oz and its inhabitants, while not particularly revolutionary, was sufficient and "magical" enough to not be distracting. Unfortunately, once those designs begin to move (as this IS a "motion picture") the film begins to run into problems. Some of the animation, especially in the Kansas scenes at the beginning and end of the film, are on par with the old Sims computer game renderings, which were impressive for their time, but CGI has moved FAR beyond that. But the biggest misstep of all is the original music written to make the film a "musical". The concept, production, and placement of these songs are so bad that they almost felt like an afterthought. I expected Bryan Adams to deliver something much better than the finished product and was quite disappointed. The only saving grace on the soundtrack is "Even Then"....which "even then" had terrible moments of mediocrity. Perhaps Bryan Adams just isn't capable of delivering that twinkly, magical, Disney-ish feeling music ala "Frozen" that (in my opinion) was needed for a film like this. As the title summary states, its a mixed bag, but still at least somewhat enjoyable for fans of the original and of L. Frank Baum's novels.

I really dislike this movie. It was one of the rare times when I went to see a movie and had low expectations for it and I left the movie with an even lower opinion of it.

In the movie, Dorthy comes back to Oz to rescue her old friends from a new villain with the help of some new friends, but the new friends are not as good as the Scarecrow, the Tin man, and the Lion. they had no depth to them and their purpose was weak.

This may have not been a big deal if Dorthy, the main character, wasn't so one-dimensional.

The new villain, the Jester had potential, but falls short. I think it had a lot to do with the character design overall, which tried to be creative but had no feel to it. Very strange, it was like the artist were not communicating with the animators

I did not like the animation. I thought it was not smooth enough for a movie being released in theaters.

I guess the movie got the released because of all the names attached to the project. The movie was able to use the success of Glee's Lea Michelle who played Dorothy to get it out their. I recognized the voices of Dan Aykroyd and Martian Short, but the voice talent that made no sense was Patrick Stewart, who I feel had better things to do than this movie.

In a world with plenty of Wizard of Oz Sequel, Prequels, and spin-off this was by far the worse. You and your kids have better things to do.