Tin Man (Two-Disc Collector's Edition)
by Nick Willing
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DVD details
Actor: Alan Cumming, Neal McDonough, Raoul Trujillo, Richard Dreyfuss, Zooey DeschanelDirector: Nick Willing
Brand: WELLSPRING/GENIUS
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language)
Format: Collector's Edition, Color, DVD-Video, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.66:1
Running Time: 265 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2008-03-11
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: Rhi Entertainment
DVD Reviews of Tin Man (Two-Disc Collector's Edition)
DVD Review: A new age OZ
Summary: 5 Stars
Great casting, interesting plot concepts and Zooey Deschanel on a trip to the OZ. Richard Dreyfuss as the Great and Terrible Magic Man, whoa.
By far the most enjoyable character is Alan Cummings "Glitch". A completely delightful goof.
BUY IT, YOU WON'T REGRET IT.
DVD Review: "I Haven't Been Here Before...But I Know This Place..."
Summary: 4 Stars
"Tin Man" is an interesting specimen of a mini-series. Based on the "Wizard of Oz" books by L. Frank Baum, I was initially under the impression that this was either a contemporary version of the 1939 movie or a revisionist treatment of the original children's book. Then once the film started, I realized that it was a complete re-imagining of the subject matter, in which familiar aspects of the book and movie had been redesigned in a sort of "alternative Oz", now called the O.Z. (short for Outer Zone). Then, in the third installment of the film, "Tin Man" changes again, and is revealed to be a sequel, with direct mention - and even a cameo appearance - by Dorothy Gale herself. As such, "Tin Man" defies any attempts to classify it. But that is only fitting considering the source material, which been involved in a range of retellings over the years, from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz: 100th Anniversary Edition (Books of Wonder), to The Wizard of Oz, to Return to Oz to Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (Harper Fiction) to the stage-show spectacular. I also recall watching an animated cartoon on Saturday mornings based on Oz.
As such, I'm hesitant to give away too much of the plot for "Tin Man". Coming into this movie completely cold as to what to expect, half the fun was watching it all unexpectedly unfold. Basically, a young woman called DG is swept away (literally) from her life as a small-town waitress and into a world with which she feels a strange affinity.
Picking up her own versions of the Scarecrow, Tin Man and Cowardly Lion, DG begins to traverse this strange new world on a variety of quests - for her parents, for answers, for the wizard, for memories, for her captive friends, for emeralds, for the struggle against evil...for a lot of things actually. As it turns out, the O.Z. is under the ever-growing control of the evil sorceress Azkadelia (give a girl a name like that, and how do you expect her to turn out?) who has the usual plans to take over the world with the help of a doomsday machine that only needs one last McGuffin to activate its power.
If you're sensing a healthy amount of snark in these opening paragraphs, that's because the first half-hour or so of this sprawling mini-series is difficult to warm up to. DG wears a blue-and-white gingham waitress uniform and stands momentarily in a beam of sunlight (cue eye roll). The first inhabitants of the O.Z. she meets are midgets dressed as...turkeys? I guess they were this version's idea of the Munchkins, but as members of a secret resistance hiding out in the forest, I'm not sure why they decided to dress themselves up in feathers and colourful war-paint.
Azkadelia is every clich?d villain you've ever seen rolled into one. She stomps around in a dominatrix outfit, cursing and pouting, and doing things like killing inept henchmen and telling the next in line that: "you've just been promoted." Even worse, there are tattoos on her cleavage that turn into this adaptation's version of the winged-monkeys...in order to release them she sheds her outer-garment and thrusts her breasts toward the camera.
I was about to switch it off, but then all of a sudden...it got better! Most of the interest of the story is contained within the twists and turns concerning DG's discovery of the world and its connection with her own past, ultimately making this a story about a long-separated family trying to reunite. There's more to Azkadelia than some gold latex and an evil hairdo, as we find in her tragic back-story that gives her evil acts a purpose. And our three companions: Glitch, Cain and Raw, as the respective Scarecrow, Tin Man and Lion, each get their own sub-plots that work well in the context of the over-arching tale. Furthermore, it's fun to see the creators playing around with the source material, such as a new rendering of the Yellow Brick Road, the reinterpretation of the Wizard as a "Mystic Man" who is perpetually high on vapours, or the literal use of a "tin man" in corporeal punishment, all providing echoes of the familiar story.
This is particularly true when you realize that this is the Oz of the future, taking place many years after the events that we know of in Baum's original story. What with its vaguely steam-punk, retro, mechanical atmosphere, it's easy to believe that this is an Oz that has evolved from our original understanding of that world, with the same blend of Old World resonance and newfangled technology that was present in the book. Sadly, they skipped the opportunity to add in a few details of Baum's book that have not yet made it to the screen, such as the talking field mice or the city of china people...but hey, you can't have it all.
Acting is also a mixed bag. As the protagonist, Zooey Deschanel relies on a droll, cynical tone which mostly works in her favour, but sometimes comes off a little strange. In a critical moment when her life as she knows it is turned completely on its head, she responds with sarcasm and exasperation. It rings rather false. However, her casual demeanor does serve to ground the film, and really - who could resist those big blue eyes? Neal McDonough gets the most attention as the titular Tin Man of the title, and plays his part well, but the real stand-out is Alan Cummings as Glitch, who manages to be both comedic and poignant in his portrayal of a man who has lost the greater part of himself and mournful of his awareness of this loss. There's a reason why Dorothy told the Scarecrow she'd miss him most of all, and Cummings reminds us why.
However, some of the acting, particularly among the supporting characters, is sub-par. I won't name names; suffice to say, you'll know it (and wince at it) when you see it. It's always frustrating when an expensive and generally well-made production is bought down by a lack of talent in its cast. Likewise, some of the special effects are very good, usually the rendering of the scenery and the cyclone, whereas others are awful - the CGI feeders for example.
As many have already noted, this is not for kids, as there are several sexual situations, violent scenes and coarse language. There's nothing inherently wrong with having such things when the need arises, but in this case there's little reason for it except in the attempt to darken things up. Parents would be reluctant to share this with their kids, and that's a shame considering some of the trite dialogue seems as though it was specifically written for children. It's like they're not quite sure who their audience is.
And of course, what would an adaptation like this be without an array of in-jokes, references and winks to the audience? As such, prepare for police-officers called "Gulch" and kids who remind each other to watch out for lions, tigers and bears *oh my!* When DG is asked: "Had that nightmare again?" She replies: "In Technicolour," and variations of things like "Have a heart," "I've lost my marbles" and "Show some back-bone," are oft-repeated (guess what characters they refer to. Go on, guess). And that's just off the top of my head. As with everything else, some work, some don't.
On the whole, I enjoyed myself. Though it's very long, the story moves at a brisk state, and the production design is beautiful - definitely eye-candy as far as I'm concerned. I'd recommend it, just so long as you know what you're getting into before you start watching: as "Tin Man" is almost certainly not what you'd expect!
DVD Review: An interesting re-telling!
Summary: 5 Stars
Special effects are a little corny, but other than that, it's a great mini-series. You fall right back into the old story you remember, and enjoy the new characters and interesting story. Definitely worth watching. DVD Review: The Yellow Brick Road in Ruin
Summary: 4 Stars
For many people, THE WIZARD OF OZ is one of their favorite films of all time. Frank L. Baum's original story became a hugely popular and critical success not long after it was published and the story of the THE WONDERFUL WIZARD OF OZ and over 100 years later is still popular and hugely influential (look at the massive success of the musical WICKED). Despite this, nowadays many people have never read the original story or books that Baum wrote. If they had they would begin to see that Oz isn't necessarily the bright and always cheerful place that the 1939 pictured. Oz was a fantastical place, but like in all fairy tales, evil and darkness is lurking in the shadows. Just take the flying monkeys. Many people think that monkeys are cute and sometimes they are. But monkeys are also very cruel creatures that like to play with their own feces and can be quite vicious and the idea of monkeys that can fly and are large enough to lift a lion is very frightening. There's all kinds of creatures like that in Oz, proving that beneath the glitter Oz can be a very scary place, indeed, and a modern update of the tale would make for a spectacular movie.
Thus, the Sci-Fi Channel stepped in and updated the story with the airing of TIN MAN in December 2007. TIN MAN follows a young woman named DG (Zooey Deschanel). DG is living in rural Kansas. She works as a waitress at the local diner in town, rides a motorcycle, keeps getting chased around by Police Officer Gulch, and dreams of moving to a different place and living a more exciting life. DG is a fantastic artist and great mechanic. She also starts having bad dreams that start to occur more and more frequently. Late one night DG is awaken by a giant tornado, with a group of armed men in long coats, headed towards the family farmhouse. Before she can really understand what is happening DG is being chased by the men in long coats and is pushed by her parents into the twister and taken to a completely different world, the O.Z. She undergoes a series of adventures and is joined in her quest to find her parents by a man who has had his brain taken out and has a zipper on his skull, a man who was locked in an iron suit for over a decade who used to be a police officer or "Tin Man", and a humanoid lion who has the gifts of healing and telepathy.
I saw the advertisements for TIN MAN when it first aired, but was unable to watch the special. It's a shame because the mini-series became the single highest television event for the Sci-Fi Channel in their history. After a former student recommend that I watch the series, I made sure to watch it when it aired again in March 2008 and later watched the DVD. The overarching story is familiar, but the O.Z. is a much different and darker place than the Oz that people are probably familiar. I found the story fascinating. The film features a great cast of highly talented actors which gives the production a slightly higher level of creditability than many other Sci-Fi specials. The special effects are spectacular and the score is riveting.
With that said, there are a few weaknesses in the script. For instance, the timeframe that the story takes place incredible if not impossible and the whole idea of the flying monkeys being magical tattoos that fly off the wicked witch's chest is more than a bit unsettling. I also was disappointed by the third part of the series. The first two parts of the series were well plotted, but the third section is rushed and concludes rather abruptly. The story would have been better if the final act was extended and more evenly paced with a satisfying epilogue.
Still the TIN MAN is a great film. It updates the story of THE WONDERFUL WIZARD OF OZ without minimizing it and in fact extends the legend of Oz. Also, unlike many others who have seen the film I think TIN MAN is perfectly suitable for most viewers, including children. TIN MAN is a fairy tale. Fairy tales are supposed to have an element of darkness and suspense in them because fairy tales are really about life and sad, dark, and scary things exist in life. Besides, flying monkeys really don't exist and if they did we should all be scared of them anyway.
Recommended for people who enjoy films with a good story, people who enjoy quality fantasy films, and people who have actually read some of the original Oz books,
The DVD includes several extras including the making-of featurette "Beyond the Yellow Brick Road--The Making of TIN MAN"; behind the scene footage of director Nick Willing; a blooper reel; interviews with Nick Willing, Alan Cumming, Neal McDonough, and Zooey Deschanel; the original TIN MAN trailer, and trailers for THE MIST and THE HOGFATHER.
DVD Review: Tin Man
Summary: 5 Stars
Loved it on tv, I am so glad I bought the DVD...I am a big fan of the Wizard of Oz and this compliments it perfectly.
Description of Tin Man (Two-Disc Collector's Edition)
A tent-pole miniseries release from RHI Entertainment and SCI FI Channel, Tin Man is a modern science fiction update of L. Frank Baum's timeless "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz." When a sorceress named Azkadellia scorches the once-beautiful land of OZ into a desolate wasteland, the only hope lies in an "outsider" named DG, a young Midwestern woman, whose troubling dreams have summoned her to the doomed paradise. D.G. embarks on a journey to find the great mystic man to save the O.Z. and on her way she befriends a scarecrow named Glitch, a tin cop named Cain, and gentle manimal named Raw. Journey beyond the yellow brick road withTin Man, now on DVD for the first time in this 2-Disc Collector's Edition with amazing bonus features and collectible packaging.General DVDs
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