Return to Oz -- 1985 -- PG

We got this one from Netflix because we thought the kids might enjoy it. It scared the crap out of them. They didn't like the headless woman. They didn't like the Nome King. It was all very scary to them, making me, of course, kick myself for not watching it first...I mean, it says "Parental Guidance Suggested" for a reason, right. Anyway...

This is obviously a sequal to The Wizard of Oz, but don't get it confused with the 1939 musical classic, as this can be argued to be more based on the book than the movie that was nearly fifty years old at the time of its release (though we can't put it past Disney to release direct sequels to fifty year old films, can we?). Anyway, the movie musical was done by MGM, anyway, not Disney.

So we get Dorothy Gale, still remembering her tim in Oz, living in a half-finished house following the tornado that ripped up and destroyed everything. Aunt Em is concerned with Dorothy's obsession with this Oz place, and so she takes Dorothy into this psychiatric hospital in the hopes of ridding her of this fantasy. Well, Dorothy is none too pleased with having her head zapped by the doctor's new machine, so she takes off in a thunderstorm and ends up back in Oz. Once there, she finds everything to be in a shambled mess. The muchkins are gone, the yellow brick road is destroyed, and the Emerald City is completely devoid of its emeralds. She finds the tin man and lion turned to stone and the scarecrow in the custody of a creature called the Nome King who lives in the midst of the Deadly Desert. This is quickly becoming a story that shows off the sheer imagination of L. Frank Baum moreso than "Follow the Yellow Brick Road" ever hoped to.

But the film quickly follows kid pic formula with Dorothy getting together a large number of friends during her journey. Friends that cause more trouble than they're worth in most cases, but somehow serve to help her in her journey to get what she wants in total deference to whatever they may need. Frankly, I'd like to see a "friend" in these kid flicks be more about himself than the person involved (actually, Hoggle in Labyrinth comes to mind there). But here, they're all about Dorothy and helping her retrieve the Scarecrow.

The plot is decent, and I have to say the changeable heads of Mombi are actually rather clever, despite its freakiness. I think some of the plot happens way too easily. For instance, Dorothy willingly goes with Mombi even though they narrowly escape these Wheeler things who don't enter Mombi's place. Exactly how would that imply that Mombi is a good person? When the Gump falls apart, it is nothing short of coincidence that they are right over the Nome King's mountain. It is also interesting that Mombi has an underground path straight to the Nome King's mountain as well. In addition, some may recall that it took Dorothy a long time to reach the Emerld City the first time around, and yet now, she makes it in no time at all. Mombi also makes the journey from the City to the Mountain fiarly quickly as well. And then the way Tik-tok is "rescued" tops the list of unlikely plot coicidences.

Add a fair amount of dialogue cheese and you have a film that does well in creating a fantastic world, but only mediocre in making it believable. We are interested in Dorothy's journey through this world, but then snicker at the ridiculous mishaps they came up with to "complicate" the journey. So it's an overall mixed bag of a film that tries to be fantastic, but only succeeds in being ok. It's not bad, mind you, but just ok.