I tried to hate it, really i did (spoilers)

Rating: 8/10 (5 January 2001)

Don't touch me. I'm a hideous, hideous freak. Somehow, I managed to live for twenty-two years without seeing The Wizard of Oz.
Don't hate me. I'm not a complete freak; I'd seen bits and pieces over the years, but I'd hated most of them. I hated Judy Garland's tobacco-chewing voice, I hated the gaudy colours of Oz, I hated the simplistic story and the childish morals, I hated the songs, I hated the pantomime feel of it all, I hated the Munchkins' singing voices, I hated pretty much everything about it, and thought of it as just another over-rated classic.
Sitting down to watch this properly for the first time, I was looking forward to writing a bad review, because they're more fun to write. My plan was scuppered when I realised I loved this movie from start to finish. Damn!
Judy Garland is great as Dorothy, managing to be feisty and helpless at the same time, the cowardly lion is always funny, and the tinman and the scarecrow are both charming. The story is still simplistic, but now I see it as childlike, not childish. There was a more cynical voice inside my head telling me I shouldn't be liking it, but I managed to ignore it  that voice should learn to shut up every once in a while.
It's far from perfect, and even now I think most people over-rate it. The black and white opening is a little strained as the farm hands are forced to throw in words like `courage', `heart' and `brain' to drop hints about who they'll be when they reappear in Oz. The wicked witch is a bit hammy, her make-up is unconvincing, and you can see the trap door open before she disappears from Munchkinland. The did-it-all-really-happen ending is too familiar a twist to be effective or surprising, but these are only points of pedantry.
It gets boring reading the clichéd professional reviews that say how this movie captures your heart, but my heart was captured, and for a few days after seeing it I felt happier than I had before. Like Mary Poppins, Oz is a genuinely innocent, childlike story with great songs, loveable characters and heart-warming morals. It's such a shame I couldn't hate it.