Dragged. Bad actors with bad lines. Good actors with bad lines. Bad special effects. Seriously folks, I really tried... ...just bad. Crap. Crap. Crap!

Unlike most of the reviews, I actually enjoyed the series. I do think it could be cut to two hours and be more enjoyable - three was a tad too long. My main complaint was the acting. Christopher Lloyd was excellent and you expect that from him, but the big surprise for me was Glinda, the good witch. I had not seen her before and was very impressed with her work. I think Glinda (Noel Thurman) should have played Dorothy and vice versa. Hope to see more of Noel in the future. The other actors were sub-par at best. On the whole, I think the film is good for all ages. The visual effects could have been better as well as the directing.

Possibility of Spoilers Altert but I hope not The Wicked Witches' plans to rule Oz are foiled. Dorothy returns to Kansas and now she's all grown up. Dorothy is an author to her own line of Oz books. Dorothy and her partner Allen are offered a publishing deal to the books and are whisked off to New York. Soon they will discover all is not what it seems. That the Wicked Witches still seek to obtain that which has eluded their grasp. Instilled with fear and doubt Dorothy must now find it within herself to face what's to come. She'll soon discover that she's not as alone as she thought. Dorothy will also have to face some hard realities of life and will learn some truths from her past long forgotten as she discovers whom she really is. Will Dorothy discover the Wicked Witches' evil intentions in time and be able to stand in their way and defeat them, or is this just the beginning to our world's demise? That is the key to things you'll see.I'd say See It, it's not a rehashing of what came before, it's modernized brought into our world melding a whole whirlwind of ideas for a new take on the World of Oz and combining all these new but still familiar elements into a standalone new story. It's filled with so many intricate parts to the plot that make it an intelligently brilliant story. Does it deliver? Yes and No. I first saw it back in 2011 but didn't review it and wasn't all that awe struck by it, though still fond of it. I watched it again for the first time a few weeks ago and discovered a new found deep appreciation of what they had created and I saw it in a new light. There was just so much story to be included which they sculpted together brilliantly that I thoroughly enjoyed it. It wasn't made exactly for little kids new to the stories of Oz but for us who grew up watching The Wizard of Oz and Return to Oz and have been waiting so long for something more and up to date. That being said it is a 2 part mini-series of about nearly 3hrs combined. The special effects are stronger in some places than in others. Some are really beautifully rendered and there are some wonderful shots of New York while other effects just don't seem to be enough or on par with today's blockbuster standards. This movie hosts some of the best talent around today. If you're like me you may not fully appreciate it right away and it may take going back to. Return to Oz wasn't a huge success but it is a beloved cult classic. It was a lot shorter and in my opinion better than Syfy's Tin Man and reminded me of say something like the series Once Upon a Time or Stardust, the Golden Compass, Ink heart, Merlin or an older TV mini-series the 10th Kingdom. Movies along those lines, just as good as any of them, if not better.Donald Huggins Jr.

First impressions: The visual effects won't blow you away. If you've seen the opening sequences of Dungeons & Dragons you know what I mean. Budget constraints, I suppose.Welcome to the Land of Exposition: Once upon a time there was a world full of magic. The pure at heart (conveniently colour coded for easy identification) were guardians of the greatest magic. But bad humans harnessed magic and sought to oppress everyone and steal allll the magic. And that's why we can't have nice things.Magical war ensues, and the world ended up looking like Mordor on a Thursday. The Munchkin wizard Bini Aru collected all the remaining magic and harnessed (more harnessing, yes) its power in a single spell, which he put in his spell-book. Then he created Oz, a sort of safari park for those hunted by humanity.The book is handed over to the Good Witches (blonde hair, GHD curling tongs, Maybelline loyalty card), and Bini Aru turns into a CGI butterfly. You will be seeing this butterfly again. Meanwhile, the witches of the East and West (wearing black and red this season, predictably brunette), are corrupted by their lust for the magic book and decide to wage war on Oz to get hold of it.The book, naturally, is the price to end the war, and the Wizard of Oz gives it to the witches, but the magical key that unlocks it is snatched by Dorothy, who... I have no idea. A solar flare kidnaps her, or something, and dumps her in Kansas.Five minutes in, and I'm so entrenched in the Realm of Backstory that it's rather a shock to be thrust into Kansas.Cue the actual story...Pacing is an issue as is a sense of plot progression. Things just happen. Someone suggested that this might had done better as a series of shorter episodes, and maybe that might have helped, or some serious trimming might have made the whole thing more coherent. There doesn't seem to be much structure to the story - Dorothy has a series of encounters in New York, but there's no real storytelling or impact here. All the key revelations take place in the margins, starting with the Oz backstory and ending with the letter from Uncle Henry, and much of what falls between seems like padding. The story Dorothy describes in the most recent book she's writing sounds so much more interesting than the actual plot that it's hard to believe that it's ostensibly the story that's meant to be taking place in front of our own eyes.The characters are another weak point. Clearly the writers did research the Oz stories. Bringing in Bini Aru, Princess Langwidere &c show that they looked beyond the usual protagonists, so credit where it's due. The problem here is that the characters aren't strong enough. Dorothy is sweet to the point of saccharine. She spends her first two minutes of screen time talking to the farm animals and reading Oz stories to little children before going to work at a sweet shop. I half expected to see animated bluebirds lighting on her shoulder all the while. Baum's Dorothy was always a little feisty, kind, but occasionally mutinous. This version seems the sort of person to whom things happen, when she should be happening to other people.Our Scarecrow/Lion/Tin Man trio this side of the rainbow are Allen and Bryan and Nick, oh my, and it's a huge shame that these three weren't given the chance to bond early on, because a strong relationship between these three could have made all the difference. We get hints at who they're meant to be - Allen is tactless and scatterbrained, Nick (Chopper) works in the minerals and metals industry, so I suppose he's 'in' tin, in a way, and he does pick up a child's teddy bear for them, so clearly he's got a heart, and Bryan... eats doughnuts. They're all likable enough and perhaps they'll redeem themselves in Part Two, but that really seems too late.The witches are... okay. I have a feeling that Eliza Swenson's character might come into her own later on, but in the first half she just doesn't have enough bite. There's no attempt to conceal her identity right from the start but she seems too measured. Nice, even. Given that Swenson also composed the score, edited, co-wrote and co-produced the film, I can only assume this is intentional. But, oh, for a more nefarious personality... Langwidere (yes, I know she's not a witch), doesn't help. None of her heads are exactly scene-stealers and that's a shame. For all the witches' dark deeds, someone who steals your HEAD and wears it for their own stands out as a really scary premise, but even when she's threatening to take Dorothy's there was no genuine sense of menace.Speaking of underused characters, Toto does nothing in most of the scenes he's in. As with all my previous observations, I can only hold out hope that he does more in Part Two - Toto has always been an active participant in the stories, not just a prop.This isn't something I'd buy on DVD, and I doubt I'll keep it on my Sky box after watching Part Two. Nor will I seek out the soundtrack, something I did immediately after watching Tin Man. The score isn't bad, but it's unmemorable, other than the overuse of sparkly chime bars lest we forgot there's MAGIC in this show.To sum up: it won't kill you to watch this muddled, ambling production, but it's unlikely to leave you feeling moved or enthused. Instead, I'd recommend breaking out Return to Oz (fun times with Etc), or Tin Man (Alan Cumming kicking people in the face), or just play "Defying Gravity" repeatedly until you can hear the secret message.I may be lying about the secret message.