classicacres7050 I thoroughly enjoyed this movie. I grew up with Wizard of Oz once a year but I must be going thru my second childhood because this was great. I admit I'm not too critical of special effects because I don't have much to compare them to...all I know is what I like and I thought these were great. The story kept having twists and turns that you never expect. I thought the acting was great even though I may be easy to please, I couldn't wait to see what happened next and was almost sorry when the movie ended. There are a few other movies like this I enjoy and, like I said, I wish they would have had some of them when I was younger...I envy the kids and their choices today but I still can enjoy them at my age (69) too.

Morbius Fitzgerald Is this my favourite adaptation of Oz? No, I prefer the 1985 film Return To Oz. Is this a groundbreaking miniseries that should be up there with "Rome" as one of the best miniseries' ever? No. Is this just a bit of fun that's worth at least one watch the whole way through? Yes.I have one complaint, The script. The dialogue was thinner than a standard A4 sheet of paper and at the end of the first episode, Kane falls into ice and starts sinking when at the beginning of the second episode, he's on the snow and he doesn't show any sign of being wet nor is there a crack in the ice. This can only be avoided if you REALLY turn your brain off. I also have one more pet peeve, this is supposed to be a re-imagining of the original Wonderful Wizard Of Oz book by L. Frank Baum yet DG is actually a descendant of Dorothy Gale. It should be a sequel set thousands of years after the 1900 setting yet "the real world" is set in normal time.I liked the performances though, Alan Cumming does a good job as Glitch and I liked the little twist they gave on "I haven't got a brain." The wicked witch also has screen presence considering that her plan was to make the OZ dark as opposed to being bright. Zooey Deschanel does a good job as DG but after seeing Fairuza Balk play Dorothy I can't see any variation of Dorothy besides the 6-12 year old, In spite of that Zooey does a good job.My only REAL complaint is the script being a bit thin. Other than that I recommend this series to anyone who wants a rather unusual variation on the L. Frank Baum classic or if you've never read the books (I haven't) a variation of the bright, happy 1939 film.

Tss5078 Several years ago, the SyFy channel decided to take a crack at re-inventing the classic Wizard of Oz, a noble task, that many have tried and failed. I didn't know what to expect, but I assumed it would be some variation of the classic tale, hoping it would be more the like books and less like the films. Tin Man is defiantly not for kids and takes a unique approach to the classic story. In this version, OZ is not the friendly lovable place with strange characters and happy times for all. It's a dark story, about a dark place, where presently there is a lot of pain and misery. The big twist in the story is that this OZ is centuries past the one visited by Dorothy Gale. In the Outer Zone (O.Z.), Dorothy Gale is a revered as the start of the royal families bloodline, but she has been dead for centuries! That being said, quite ingeniously, the future residents of the O.Z. parallel the old story, but not because they have to, they are in a sense mocking the original story in subtle ways. There's D.G. (Zooey Deschanel), the girl from the other side, who was forced into the O.Z., with no memory of ever having been there before. She soon meets Glitch, (Alan Cummings) a man who had part of his brain removed for disobeying the Queen. As they try to figure out what is happening around them, they run into a man (Neal McDonough) being punished in a Tin Man suit. This man was a Cop or Tin Man in the O.Z. who was deemed a threat, and put into this horrible form of torture. Finally, they come to the rescue of a native healer, named Raw (Raoul Trujillo), who has become trapped by carnivores and is about to become dinner. Together they go to see the wise man, to find out how to proceed in helping D.G. The Wise Man (Richard Dreyfuss) turns out to be a drugged out magician doing parlor tricks! There are a million other parallels to the original story that make the journey through the O.Z. that much more enjoyable. Zooey Deschanel is the star and even though people often mistake her unique style of acting for inexperience, she was the perfect choice to play D.G. The other standout is veteran character actor, Neal McDonough, who gives a gut wrenching and strong performance as the tortured former cop, in search of his family. The rest of the supporting cast was equally as impressive, taking you through the full range of emotions. As I said before, this is certainly not the OZ you grew up with and it's certainly not what I expected. Everything from the special effects, to the story, and even the modernization, was extremely impressive. It really is a shame that this was only a three part mini-series, but this would have made for one hell of a regular series. Some of the parallels are obvious, but there were plenty of times where I legitimately forgot that I was watching The Wizard of Oz. Leave the musical for the kid, this is what Frank Baum had in mind when he started this series, and it's most defiantly meant for mature audiences only.

MrGKB ...despite the elaborate (and often effective) production design by Michael "Riverworld" Joy, some nice camera-work by Thomas "ditto" Burstyn, an occasionally evocative score by Simon "Phenomena" Boswell, and relatively competent direction by Nick "(Close Your Eyes)/Doctor Sleep" Willing. The acting is okay, too, with the possible exception of Zooey "Almost Famous" Deschanel, who turns in a performance that relies far too much on wide-eyed innocence/confusion to play believably on a mid-20s woman. Kathleen "Beverly Hills, 90210" Robertson offers up a magnificent, tattooed décolletage and not much else (hampered as she is by several hideous outfits, and completely outclassed by her young counterpart, Alexia "Fido" Fast); Neil "Band of Brothers" McDonough plays the eponymous support role as a re-fried Harrison Ford; Raoul "Apocalypto" Trujillo is the Cowardly Lion stand-in, but is given nothing beyond plot-driven telepathy to make him stand out; while Alan "Reefer Madness: The Movie Musical" Cumming contributes a sometimes delightful, sometimes colorless version of the Scarecrow, this time named Glitz and afflicted with a bad case of zipperhead. Richard "you have to ask?" Dreyfuss has a few cameo appearances as Mystic Man, the revamped Wizard, but with so little to work with, even he fails to register more than momentary interest.The problem, as I see it, rests (as it usually does) with the ambitious-yet-unextraordinary script by the longtime writing/producing team of Steven Long "The Pretender"/"She Spies"/"Alien Nation" Mitchell and Craig W. "Same here" Van Sickle. Despite veering toward outright camp (check out some of those fetishistic costumes), and a plethora of references, veiled and not-so-veiled, to the MGM musical classic, "Tin Man" doesn't have a whole lot of heart, and not much in the way of good humor, either, and all this despite the avowed intentions of those involved (at least according to the DVD extras).I can only imagine that watching this mini-series as originally presented in a commercial setting would have been an exercise in frustration and tedium. It hits most of the same thematic notes that one would expect (friendship, knowing yourself, etc. etc. etc.), but none of it comes anywhere near the impact of either the original L. Frank Baum tales or the iconic Judy Garland/Four Friends version. It's worth a watch, but definitely not a keeper.