The Wizard of Oz (IMAX): The Conversion was Problematic, But Still a Great Film For Children

Title: The Wizard of Oz (IMAX Conversion)

Genre: Adventure, Family, Fantasy, Musical

Stars: Judy Garland, Frank Morgan, Ray Bolger, Bert Lahr, Jack Haley

Runtime: 101 mins

Rating: PG

Okay I have a confession, I haven’t seen The Wizard of OZ before.  This sounds pretty silly, considering I’m a movie reviewer, but really old movies like this have never been that enjoyable for me.  However, I decided it was fitting for me to celebrate the 75th anniversary of this classic by attending an IMAX version of the film, which is available for one week only.  Besides becoming more ‘movie cultured’ I would also be able to see how IMAX fairs against really old and grainy film.

I’ll explain the story to anyone who doesn’t know it (all 4 of you): Dorothy Gale (Garland) is a young farm girl living in Kansas who is dreaming of a better place.  One day she gets sucked up in a tornado and finds herself in the Land of Oz (because…reasons).  After discovering she has crushed an evil witch with her house, Dorothy is informed that in order to get home, she should find the Wizard of Oz (Morgan) who lives in the Emerald City.  She follows the yellow brick road to the city and along the way meets Scarecrow (Bolger), Tin Man (Haley) and Cowardly Lion (Lahr) who all travel with her in order to ask the Wizard for favors of their own.

One of them should have been better singing voices…

I’ll talk about the IMAX conversion later, but I’ll start with critiquing the movie itself first.  The first thing I need to talk about is the acting, which is the reason I tend not to watch old movies.  See, actors back in this early period of films, overacted like a bitch.  This isn’t the fault of the actors themselves, because this was just how acting was done back then.  But it makes it impossible to enjoy the experience for me, because the crazy overacting is way too distracting and sucks me out of the immersion.  This film is no exception because everyone here was so crazy and over the top.  It wasn’t all bad, Judy Garland did some surprisingly good bits, especially in the scenes where she cried.  While her voice was still high and overacted, she summoned tears on a whim, which was super impressive back then..  But other than that, the acting made me groan.

While these fantasy films stray a fair bit from realism and I have no problem with Dorothy showing up in Oz randomly, or that clicking your heels three times teleports you, but there’s some actual plot holes I thought were kinda odd.  The Wicked Witch of the West melts because reasons, The Good Witch sends Dorothy on a days long trip to a wizard she knows is a fraud, claiming Dorothy wouldn’t believe her about the slippers (even though she had already seen magic, a Wicked Witch and Singing Midgets at this point).  The Wicked Witch captures Dorothy and plans to kill her but decides to wait an hour first because she apparently needs to think about how to do it.

“Wait here, while I watch ‘Saw’ on Netflix!”

But the big question many are wondering is if the IMAX 3D enhanced the experience.  3D and IMAX rarely ‘enhance’ the whole experience, but they can make the visual aspect of a film a bit better.  I will readily admit the 3D was done very well in several areas, and helped some of the props come to life.  It even worked well during the non-colour scenes at the beginning of the film.  However, the actual IMAX conversion came with some odd side effects.  I was very impressed with the restoration job they did on the film, because I was worried that the grainy film was un-savable, but the picture quality was fantastic.  However, that came with a price.  See, back then they could get away with shoddy props because the low resolution and/or graininess would hide that the objects were blatantly fake.  An example is during the apple tree scene, the old footage hid the fact the apples weren’t real.  But the IMAX cleared up the picture so much it became super obvious that they were plastic or something.  This happened constantly throughout the film, not just with the props, but it also showed flaws in the costumes or make-up. This is easily forgivable, since they didn’t have much to work with back then.  However, that slightly defeats the purpose of picture restoration, if it’s gonna draw attention to the many flaws movies back then had.

“I thought this floating head was real before IMAX! YOU RUINED MY CHILDHOOD!!”

Before I get hate mail for bashing a classic, I will now tell you what is great about the film: It is an amazing film for kids, which was the target audience anyway.  This movie has everything that kids love, it’s colourful, silly, it has music, magic, a clear antagonist, singing, and over the top slapstick comedy.  The Scarecrow’s crazy dancing just looks stupid to adults, but it’s hilarious to kids, who love watching adults make fools out of themselves. The color-changing horse, hilarious to kids, warrants not much more than a chuckle from adults.

And brings up some animal cruelty questions…

If you have a small child, I would highly suggest you bring them to this film.  They will have a ton of fun and it’s a nice, safe film for them to experience their first IMAX or 3D film.  While I wouldn’t sit down and watch this film myself on a Friday night, I would love to show it to the children in my family and enjoy the fun they’d have watching it.  That alone makes this movie a great one, knowing that even 75 years later it can still be an enjoyable experience to the target audience.

So while the acting was way over the top, the plot full of holes, the IMAX drawing attention to the problems with the costumes and props, the 3D was very well done and it’s an amazing piece of entertainment for children.  It is a great family film, and I encourage families to see this classic on the big screen while they have the chance this week.  And if the big screen isn’t an option, it’s still a great film to watch at home with the kids.

And for a movie lover like myself, it’s important to recognize where films originally came from.

See you at the theatres!

Rating: 7 munchkins out of 10