Maybe a little overrated, but still a classic and influential piece of cinema.

Rating: 6/10 (31 October 2015)

I'm not sure how many people realize it, but this book and movie were actually written to be a political statement. I don't know what everything symbolizes, but there's plenty of potential for that with the colors and the witches being from the West, North, and East, things like "People without brains do an awful lot of talking", the Munchkins making Dorothy a national hero for doing essentially nothing, and all of the characters already having the things they wanted to ask the wizard for. But that sort of thing is more marketable as a book, so they turned it into a more innocent children's story. Of course, a lot of the current adult generation have stories of how they would always get scared at certain points of the movie when it aired on TV every year, so it's up for debate whether it's really good for kids.
There were a number of things that I would normally have had issues with, but I gave the filmmakers the benefit of the doubt in most of these cases. Some of the quality of the acting, scripting, and general mood would be pathetic in a modern movie, but those things weren't as far along in the late 30's. Therefore, I feel it would be wrong of me to criticize them. The whole movie felt more like a play with the musical numbers and the way the actors often moved around the sets. Aside from that, everything seemed overly on-cue like in a theatrical production. Then again, this has been shown as a play plenty of times as well, so there might be good reason for that.
All of our characters are rather shallow, but have definite arcs. Dorothy has essentially two moods: simple meekness, and ethically prim anger. I guess this proves how much she really values home since she holds onto the values that have always been taught to her. You can see the other characters' gifts, or lack thereof, emerging throughout the movie. In some ways this seems a little cheesy, but it makes sense if you consider that the Scarecrow, Tin Man, and Cowardly Lion are all the way they are more due to self-image than anything else. The Wicked Witch is, if nothing else, a memorable villain, and was probably a template for a lot of Disney villains. The Wizard is sort of an interesting character in his own way. He's a classic example of, and perhaps a critique of, people who lie in an attempt to help others.
The story is pretty straightforward, and you probably know the basic idea already. Follow the yellow brick road to the Emerald City and figure out that there's no place like home and that you have to solve your own problems. Even if you don't know the story beforehand, the song reprisals make it pretty easy to remember the motivation behind everything. There's sort of an ambiguous ending since you don't know whether Dorothy actually went to Oz. It's not mind-bendingly ambiguous, but it's still interesting to see how Dorothy rationalized everything from her own life into Oz, given that it's all a dream.
The transition from sepia-scale to color was a good call outside of the technical feat of a color movie in the 30's. The color factor I think accounts for much of the publicity surrounding this film. I've always felt that technical feats are cause for a movie to be overrated, and you don't have to look far to find examples of spfx generating massive ratings. I think there is some of that going on here, but there's also a good deal of literary integrity in the film.
I don't know any better way to recommend this than to suggest that you make your own call. Most likely, you already know what you're going to get from this movie, so there's no use in me muddling your own judgment. It's certainly not the pinnacle of entertainment, but there are a few parts where you'll laugh and maybe feel for the characters to an extent. If nothing else, it might be worth watching to better understand the references people make of it. Overall Rating: 6.5/10.