California Digital Newspaper Collection

PG • 1 hour 53 min • 1985

Return to Oz is an astonishingly somber, melancholy and, sadly, unengaging trip back to a favorite land of almost every American's youth. Straight dramatic telling of little Dorothy's second voyage to the Emerald City [based on The Land of Oz and Ozma of Oz by L. Frank Baum] employs an amusement park-full of imaginative characters and special effects, but a heaviness of tone and absence of narrative drive prevent the flights of fancy from getting off the ground.

Dorothy (Balk) slips back into the dreamworld of Oz, where she finds a crumbling Yellow Brick Road and Oz itself deserted and desolate. In restoring order, she

Oh, where to begin. Let`s start with one of the opening scenes of”Return to Oz” that is certain to send young children under the age of say, 6, screaming up the aisles. Little Dorothy has been having visions and her desperate parents have decided to take her to a mean old doctor who, along with […]

Disney’s bizarre sequel, released 35 years ago this week, flies in the face of the studio’s current, carefully calibrated approach to nostalgic properties.

Read the Empire Movie review of Return To Oz. This is not so much a sequel but an homage and not a good...