Director: Walter Murch
Cast: Nicol Williamson, Jean Marsh, Piper Laurie, Fairuza Balk
Have I Seen It Before?: There was a period as a child in the 90s where it seemed like everyone I knew had seen the movie, was just finishing watching the movie, or in the middle of watching it, but somehow, I never got around to watching it. As we finally took the dive into Disney+, my wife insisted that this be one of the first things we watched. Apparently, she was watching it back in the time when everyone else was. Thus, I can remedy what might have been a tragic oversight from my own early years.
Did I like it?: This film may have the opposite problem of The Wizard of Oz. The original film is drab and largely banal during the scenes that take place in Kansas, and the film only comes to life (quite intentionally, and technicolorly so) when Dorothy reaches Oz. Return to Oz makes its more bold choices in the early scenes, hinting at a darkness in the world of the Gales—complete with early ECT machines—that surprisingly got past the Disney corporate heads.
Once Dorothy (Balk) returns to Oz here, the film exhibits the same kind of puppetry that one could find in Labyrinth (1986), The Dark Crystal (1982) or other fantasy films of the era. The stop-motion use to bring the Nome King (Williamson) to life ages poorly. Stop-motion can be a delight on its own, but it has never, ever interacted believably with real actors. It was fine for King Kong (1933), when it was the leading edge of special effects, and could be stylistic in the works of Ray Harryhausen or Tim Burton, but here it distracts more than it enchants. Jack Pumpkinhead (puppeteered by Brian Henson and Stewart Larange) is an interesting creation, it does make me think a live-action-esque remake of The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) might be the worst thing Disney could possibly do.
It may not be any particular fault of the movie, but the adventure is mildly pedestrian, and the far more transfixing parts of the film deal with the hero attempting to cope with not being on an adventure. I want to like the film more than I do, but it’s entirely likely I may have missed the key moment where it could have burrowed its way into my imagination.