By Geno McGahee
Elizabeth (Jordan Van Vranken) is a young girl in an orphanage and she is a special case. She believes that she is Dorothy and that she visited Oz and met the lion, tin man and scarecrow, and there is some compelling evidence that she is correct. The Tin Man (Orien Richman) and Scarecrow (Jermel Nakia) are leaving Oz to seek out Dorothy for help. It seems that Oz is in trouble.
The Lion (P. David Miller) is unfortunately left behind to tangle with some flying monkeys as the two head to Kansas to find Dorothy. Their journey gets old pretty fast. It’s a lot of repetition as the two walk and walk and encounter new people that all basically say the same thing…all marveling at the fact that the Tin Man and the Scarecrow are standing before them. It was OK the first ten times, but it just goes on and on and it seems like filler to make it to the hour and fifteen minutes that it turns out to be.
The acting is very good in this and the performances are very sincere, but the dialog is very mediocre and tends to drag on. The best example is when the two take a train to Kansas. They meet a blind man, Charles Samuel Williams (Peter Mark Richman), and he sits across from them and has a long conversation that goes on way too long and it’s another case of telling the viewer what they already know. It’s just not very good writing and it is quite painful to get through.
The Scarecrow and Tin Man track down Dorothy and want to flee to Oz, but in the end, there’s no place like home. Although the acting was very good, there was no emotional attachment to the characters and there isn’t much to the story. It’s nice to watch if you’re a fan of THE WIZARD OF OZ (1939), and I am a fan, but it’s not a very good film. The heart was in the right place and the production was done well, but the screenplay is the backbone of the movie and that is where this failed. I don’t recommend it.
Rating: 3/10 – good acting, good production, bad script.
