The Wizard of Oz Reviews
In truth, any opportunity to see the film on the big screen is welcome.
Full Review
| Original Score: A
The blend of old-fashioned, classic storytelling with cutting-edge technology is undeniably enthralling.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3.5/4
The result is quite stunning and a lot less gimmicky than it could have been.
Knowing that it was made without a single computer, and entirely by human ingenuity, makes it all the more worthy of marveling at, 75 years and an added dimension later.
Any reason to show your children "The Wizard of Oz" on a big screen seems like a good one.
Full Review
| Original Score: 4/4
Even swollen to IMAX size, the movie is sharper than you've ever seen it, and the vaudevillian brilliance of the choreography (and Ray Bolger's straw-boned tumbling) is entirely undiminished.
"The Wizard of Oz" celebrates its 75th anniversary looking younger and more vital than ever, simultaneously advertising good old-fashioned storytelling and the most advanced technology available.
It looks fantastic, sounds great, and the 3-D effects (reportedly labored over for 16 months by a thousand technicians) are both subtle and respectfully applied.
TIME Magazine
Top CriticThe whimsical gaiety, the lighthearted song & dance, the lavish Hollywood sets and costumes are as fresh and beguiling today as they were ten years ago when the picture was first released.
A work of almost staggering iconographic, mythological, creative and simple emotional meaning, at least for American audiences, this is one vintage film that fully lives up to its classic status.
The story of course has some lovely and wild ideas, but the picture doesn't know what to do with them, except to be painfully literal and elaborate about everything.
There is something new in the land of cinema at long last.
| Original Score: 5/5
One of only a handful of films that nearly everyone is familiar with.
Full Review
| Original Score: 4/4
There's an audience for Oz wherever there's a projection machine and a screen.
Lavish in sets, adult in humor, it is a Broadway spectacle translated into make-believe.
I don't find the film light or joyful in the least -- an air of primal menace hangs about it, which may be why I love it.
Oz simply lays bare primal emotions, exposes our childhood anxieties about abandonment and powerlessness and brings to light the tension between the repressive comforts of home and the liberating terrors of the unknown marking all our adult lives.
Warner Home Video's DVD invites you to watch the movie a dozen more times on top of the many dozens of times you've already seen it.
| Original Score: A
A delightful piece of wonder-working which had the youngsters' eyes shining and brought a quietly amused gleam to the wiser ones of the oldsters.
Full Review
| Original Score: 4/5
It scared the hell out of me when I used to watch it between my fingers when I was a kid, and (though it might say too much about my own emotional development) I still get the heebie-jeebies from a lot of it.
Remains the weirdest, scariest, kookiest, most haunting and indelible kid-flick-that's- really-for-adults ever made in Hollywood.
Full Review
| Original Score: A
This wonderful romp of a movie looks magical on the big screen: colors are a picnic for the eyes, details loom so clearly you can practically touch them and there's a sense of the larger-than-life with a film that's already larger than life.
Full Review
| Original Score: 4/4
A movie like this is so exhilarating, because, if you look deeper into it and go beyond its status, you find that it's more than just a musical lark.
Its underlying story penetrates straight to the deepest insecurities of childhood, stirs them and then reassures them.
Full Review
| Original Score: 4/4
