To start things off, I was not expecting any kind of adaptation or even a re-imagining. Just something decent. I was also dubious though, considering The Witches of Oz was airing on the SyFy Channel, save a few exceptions, a lot of stuff on there is not bothering with in my view.
Thanks to costume and set design that is a notch above to most projects on the SyFy Channel and the appearance of Lance Henrikssen, The Witches of Oz could have been much worse. But in all honesty, is that saying much? Not for me.
Apparently there were over 1,400 visual effects. Okay, that is a sort of impressive number though I don't think The Witches of Oz needed that many. It wasn't the quantity of the effects I was looking to, it was the quality of them. While not as crude as some effects I seen compared to some of the other output that airs on the channel, the quality of the effects I don't think are that good, they are often lacking in clarity and sharpness.
The lighting doesn't help much either. Some scenes are dimly lit and make some of the production values seem flat. As for the story, I liked the idea and I admit I was kind of looking forward to what they were going to do with it, however it didn't engage me, I found The Witches of Oz rather sluggishly paced and also that some scenes dragged on for too long. The characters are not written very well at all, and I cared for very few of them, even Toto.
The writing is also stilted, often in a horrendous sense, the direction is perhaps too relaxed that it becomes rather dull and the acting ranges from overplayed to wooden. The worst offenders in both these categories in my opinion are Sean Astin, trying to give his material and bad material some life but ending up overdoing it quite wildly, and the girl who plays Dorothy, who is incredibly unanimated and wooden. Christopher Lloyd is also criminally underused.
Overall, didn't entirely hate it but it didn't do anything for me, sorry. 3/10 Bethany Cox
Thanks to costume and set design that is a notch above to most projects on the SyFy Channel and the appearance of Lance Henrikssen, The Witches of Oz could have been much worse. But in all honesty, is that saying much? Not for me.
Apparently there were over 1,400 visual effects. Okay, that is a sort of impressive number though I don't think The Witches of Oz needed that many. It wasn't the quantity of the effects I was looking to, it was the quality of them. While not as crude as some effects I seen compared to some of the other output that airs on the channel, the quality of the effects I don't think are that good, they are often lacking in clarity and sharpness.
The lighting doesn't help much either. Some scenes are dimly lit and make some of the production values seem flat. As for the story, I liked the idea and I admit I was kind of looking forward to what they were going to do with it, however it didn't engage me, I found The Witches of Oz rather sluggishly paced and also that some scenes dragged on for too long. The characters are not written very well at all, and I cared for very few of them, even Toto.
The writing is also stilted, often in a horrendous sense, the direction is perhaps too relaxed that it becomes rather dull and the acting ranges from overplayed to wooden. The worst offenders in both these categories in my opinion are Sean Astin, trying to give his material and bad material some life but ending up overdoing it quite wildly, and the girl who plays Dorothy, who is incredibly unanimated and wooden. Christopher Lloyd is also criminally underused.
Overall, didn't entirely hate it but it didn't do anything for me, sorry. 3/10 Bethany Cox