Lion of Oz

If you're like me, when you saw that this movie was about the Lion of Oz, you immediately thought of Bert Lahr's performance in the 1939 film. And you thought you knew the character pretty well.

And you come to find out, there's more to him than you thought.

Cliff Ruby and Elana Lesser have written two of my favorite animated films (the underrated films "Balto" and "Cats Don't Dance"), and once again, they do a nice job with the script here. Like I mentioned above, there's more to this Lion than you thought. They do a nice job of tying into the original story at the beginning and the very end, but the majority is brand new material. The voice cast (Dom DeLuise, Bob Goldthwait, Jane Horrocks, Tim Curry, et al) does a serviceable job, though I believe they have given better performances. The animation is good, and of higher quality than some direct-to-video productions I've seen.

The only things I did not care for were the songs by Michael and Patty Silversher. They have done much better work before (their theme song for Disney's "Tale Spin" has got to be the single most irresistibly catchy theme song ever). Here, the songs just really didn't seem to do much, and I didn't really care for the vocalists' performances much. (Dom DeLuise has done MUCH better singing before.)

But this film is called "Lion of Oz," after all, and fortunately the best aspect of the production is the title character (appropriately called--Lion.) The animation of him is very good, and Jason Priestley's performance is wonderful. I love the way he delivers his lines, especially the "asides." His performance is the best one.

In closing, "Lion of Oz" has a few flaws, but it still makes for enjoyable viewing.