Voices of Lea Michele, Martin Short, Oliver Platt, and Kelsey Grammar
Directed by Will Finn and Dan St. Pierre
Music and Lyrics by various
The sordid history of Legends of Oz begins with Roland and Ryan Carroll, a pair of enterprising brothers who began soliciting funds for the movie in 2006. They were notorious for their shady fundraising practices, with cease-and-desist orders in six states going back as far as 1993. The managed to reel people into investing their life savings by claiming they would turn the world of Oz into a huge franchise, with two sequels and a TV show coming. Well...it wound up being one of the biggest flops of 2014, with nothing but lawsuits left in its wake. With all this going on, how did the film itself come out? Let's begin in Kansas, the day after the big twister, and find out...
The Story: Dorothy (Michele) is upset when a real estate appraiser (Short) comes to her uncle and aunt's farm and condemns not only their home, but pretty much her entire community. As she tries to figure out how she can save her family's livelihood, a rainbow whisks her and Toto off to the land of Oz.
Things aren't going so well there, either. The evil Jester (Short) has captured the leaders of the land, including Glinda (Bernadette Peters), and turned them into puppets in an attempt to be taken seriously. Dorothy travels first to the Emerald City, then to his castle to find him and reverse his controlling spells. She's helped on her journey by Wiser the Owl (Platt) who is so fat he can't fly, obedient candy soldier Marshal Mallow (Hugh Darcy), the brittle and spoiled China Princess (Meghan Hilty), and Tugg (Patrick Stewart), a gentle moving tree who sacrifices himself so Dorothy and the others can get to the Emerald City. Dorothy thinks she has to confront the Jester alone, but she ultimately learns that we can defeat any bully when we work with our community.
The Animation: While the colors are absolutely gorgeous (as is appropriate for a movie based on The Wizard of Oz) and the characters move well, their designs occasionally become a little too scary for their own good. The humans are particularly prone to this, their big-eyed stares and wide smiles often falling a bit too much into uncanny valley territory. On the other hand, there are some really nice action sequences, especially with the Tin Man, Lion, and Scarecrow's escape from the Emerald City and Dorothy confronting the Jester in the end.
The Song and Dance: And the song and dance is really the main reason to see this. For all the movie's problems, some of the songs really aren't bad. The China Princess and Marshal Mallow have a little romance that's kind of sweet when we see it. (Pardon the pun, given what he's made of.) Michele does do fairly well as the determined Dorothy and pulls off her numbers with a great deal of vitality.
Favorite Number: We're introduced to "The China Princess" in her dainty country as her couriers sing and throw roses at her feet. Dorothy encourages everyone to "Work With Me" to build boat that will get her and her friends to the Emerald City...and brings in several more animals in the area to aid her as well. "Even Then" is a touching ballad for Marshal Mallow after he thinks he's lost the Princess, and Dorothy when she opts to take on the Jester alone.
What I Don't Like: Dorothy's family is lucky a real appraiser didn't come along and actually kick them off their land. Con man though he was, he's right that the buildings likely weren't habitable and probably should have been condemned. The whole movie is like this, with plot holes left and right. Dorothy changes too quickly from "lets work together" to "I'll do it alone." As nightmarish as the Jester is, he still doesn't command the type of awe and horror that the original Wicked Witch did. While I did like how he finally managed to get off the ground in the end, Wiser was otherwise an annoying stock comic relief character. The dialogue is stiff and unconvincing; most of the performances frequently waver between bored (Peters, Grammar) and overdoing it (Short, Platt).
I agree with some comments online that mention it would have been better if the film concentrated on the China Princess and Marshal Mallow and their story, rather than on Dorothy and the Jester. His subservice and her dominance and how they learn to overcome these traits is really a more interesting story than anything with Dorothy and her family and the Emerald City residents.
The Big Finale: The animation and a few good tunes aren't enough to overcome a dull and nonsensical story, the all-over-the-place acting, bad dialogue, and how and why this movie was made in the first place. Only if you're a really huge fan of Wizard of Oz stories or the cast. Everyone else is better off dumping this back into that Kansas twister.
Home Media: Despite the film's stone-cold reception, it's easy to find in all formats, often for under 10 dollars.
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