Return to Oz
Tags: cult, fantasy

Plot synopsis:
It has been some time since Dorothy (Fairuza Balk) returned home to Kansas from her first trip to Oz , but she is constantly thinking of the place to the point that it is keeping her up at night. One day while out in her yard she discovers a key which has the OZ emblem on it. Thinking it was there as a message from Oz she shows it to Aunt Em (Piper Laurie) who tells her it is actually the key to their old house before the tornado blew it away. Aunt Em has had enough and takes her to see a psychiatrist called doctor Worley (Nicol Williamson) who specializes in electro-shock therapy. Toto tries to tag along but is told to go home.While at the clinic waiting for the procedure to be done, a severe storm brews outside. Dorothy then meets a mysterious patient who helps her escape when the storm knocks out the center's electricity. Dorothy manages to escape but the head nurse (Jean Marsh) chases after them. Dorothy loses the nurse, as well as her new friend, and boards a crate floating down a flooding river. From there Dorothy floats away.Dorothy later awakens in the crate to find herself back in Oz and sitting in the Deadly Desert, which has the ability to turn anyone to sand upon touch. Dorothy also discovers that she is being accompanied by her favorite chicken from her farm, Billina (Denise Bryer's voice), who now has the ability to talk.They then set out to the Emerald City to see her old friends, which includes the recently crowned King of Oz, the Scarecrow. They carefully exit the crate and cross the desert while walking on stones, and makes their way inland. The rocks have faces, but they don't say anything to her. After eating a lunch from one the country's famous lunchpale trees, they come upon Munckinland and the remains of her old house that she rode to Oz the first time via the tornado. She looks into her old house to see everything as it was when it landed, and the remains of the Wicked Witch of the East, whom she of course killed by her house landing on her during the first trip, now decomposed. However, she cannot find the munchkins or Glinda, and then she discovers a grisly site: the yellow brick road torn up in pieces.After frantically running the full length of the road, she finds the Emerald City now in ruins and all of the residents there turned to stone, including her old friends the Tin-Woodsman and the Cowardly Lion. The Scarecrow (Justin Case), who took over as King of Oz from The Wizard at the end of her first trip, is nowhere to be found. She then gets chased by a band of thugs known as the "wheelers," in reference the creatures having wheels for hands and feet. The wheelers chase Dorothy into a dead-end hallway and she appears trapped like rat until she discovers a key hole in the door. Using the key she discovered in her yard earlier, she unlocks the hidden door and shuts it behind her keeping her safe from the wheelers. While in the room she discovers a machine in the form of a soldier. She discovers from reading the instructions on his back that he is a guard and needs to be wound up to work. After doing so the machine, now known as Tik-Tock (Sean Barrett's voice), joins Dorothy as a guardian in the quest to find out what happened to Oz.After leaving the room the two walk out into the ruined city where the wheelers meet up with them. Tik Tock instructs Dorothy to run as he starts knocking out the wheelers as they attack. He grabs one of them and Dorothy questions him about the fate of Oz where he reveals that an evil king known as the Nome King conquered the Emerald City and all of Oz and took all of the city's emeralds back to his castle. When asked about the fate of the Scarecrow he tells her that only Princess Mombi (Jean Marsh) would know. Dorothy and Tick-Tock are then led to Mombi's quarters in a preserved part of the city. While there she discovers that Mombi has a collection of heads she uses that she got from various Emerald City residents when the Nome King conquered the city. She also learns from Mombi that the Nome King took the Scarecrow with him back to his mountain with the emeralds. Mombi then threatens to take Dorothy's head after she is grown up and locks her in the attic.While locked in the attic, Dorothy peers out of the locked window and is able to see the Nome King's mountain in the distance. She also sees a portrait of her old friends, including the King Scarecrow, which saddens her. She is then interrupted by a man with a pumpkin for a head who was locked in the attic earlier by Mombi when he was used by a Princess to scare her. Turns out the man, known as Jack Pumpkinhead (Brian Henson & Stewart Larange) was brought to life by a formula called the "Powder of Life," which Mombi now possesses. Dorothy then comes up with an idea to escape Mombi using the powder to create a flying animal out of chairs, a plant, and the mounted head of a gump (Lyle Conway & Stephen Norrington) found in the attic, but she first has to get the powder of life which is locked in with Mombi's original head.Jack helps her unlock the attic door by using his large height and long arms to reach over the door and unlock it from the outside. Dorothy heads downstairs and first notices a girl's image in the mirror who looks a lot like the girl from the clinic whom she had met before the storm carried her to Oz. The image vanishes and she sneaks down into Mombi's head chamber and manages to grab the powder, but not before she accidentally knocks down another object sitting by Mombi's head which awakens her. Mombi's body, which is sleeping in a nearby bed, awakens and comes for her head while Dorothy runs back up to the room where Jack is building the Gump. Dorothy then pours the powder on the gump, who doesn't awaken right away, and she discovers there are magic words on the bottle which must be said to work. Mombi tears into the room just as the powder works its magic on the gump. The pair, including Billina, hops onto the gump's back and manages to escape.While the clan is escaping, Mombi summons the wheelers to go after them. While the clan flies away into the night, the wheelers chase them on foot, but not before coming upon the Deadly Desert, which several of them fall in and die, leaving the others to retreat back to Mombi. Mombi is furious at their inability to catch the clan and orders them to take her directly to the Nome King. While flying away, Dorothy and Billina fall asleep while the others stand guard.Later Dorothy awakens to find the gump coming apart due to not originally being tied tight enough. They all fall out, landing on a snow covered mountain. The Nome King (Nicol Williamson) is then alerted of their arrival and he goes to the side of the mountain to confront them. The Nome King laughs at Dorothy's demand to free the Scarecrow and restore Oz and opens up the mountain causing her to fall in. While falling to the king's lair she is told that the emeralds from the Emerald City originally belonged to him and the Scarecrow was the thief who took them. She lands on the Scarecrow who is then zapped away. The Nome King tells her that he had turned him into an ornament for his collection.Dorothy then walks up to where the king sits and starts crying and tells him of the fact that the emeralds were there before the Scarecrow and her came to the city. The Nome King comforts her and then brings in her friends from the mountain. He then tells them that they will play a game to find the scarecrow which they will be allowed to leave with him if they guess the right ornament. The Gump is the first one allowed in to guess as the others are offered refreshment.While sitting down to refreshment the remaining pair get knocked down by a sudden flash. They then learn that the gump was just turned into an ornament since he failed to guess correctly on three tries. They also learn that their fate will be the same for not guessing correctly. Jack, with Billina hiding inside his head, is the next to go in. He guesses incorrectly and they join the Scarecrow and gump in the king's ornament collection.After Tick-Tock goes in for his try, the Nome King reveals to Dorothy that he now owns her Ruby Slippers, which he got when they fell out of the sky after she left Oz the first time. He then tells her how he used them to conquer Oz and without them he was powerless. In the meantime Tick-Tock devises a scheme to get Dorothy into the chamber while he guesses, to see what kind of object they are turning into when guessing incorrectly. He stands in the middle of the room and acts like his action ability has gone down to get the king's attention, who then sends Dorothy in to wind him up unaware of the scheme.Dorothy learns upon finding Tick-Tock that it was all a scheme to get her in there and watches as he makes his final guess. The guess turns out to be incorrect and Tick-Tock is transformed with Dorothy being unable to tell what he is turned into. Now it is Dorothy's turn, and she is now the last hope of her friends being freed and restoring the Land of Oz from the Nome King's enchantment.Meanwhile Mombi has made her way into the king's mountain(how she and the wheelers got safely across the Deadly Desert on foot I do not know). She then learns of the scheme the king had devised to finally get rid of Dorothy and her friends. Mombi not satisfied warns the king of what would happen if Dorothy guesses correctly and then learns about Ozma, whom she had imprisoned into a mirror back in the city. The king makes sure that she had not been allowed to escape as well.Back in the ornament room, Dorothy is down to her last two guesses. She guesses incorrectly on the second one but decides to play eeny miney moe on the last guess which would seal her fate. She comes across a green ornament and guesses on it revealing the Scarecrow. She then realizes that the green ornaments were the ones containing her friends. As Dorothy and the Scarecrow sets out to find the remaining three, the king becomes furious with Mombi for allowing Dorothy to escape her and come upon his secrets. He imprisons Mombi and starts to shake the building scaring Dorothy and her friends.After Dorothy finds another green ornament and guesses Jack Pumpkinhead back to life, with Billina still hiding inside his head, the King begins his fury with sending his nomes after them. They chase Dorothy into a seperate room where the Nome King enters in the form of a giant gruesome head with fire all around him. At that moment Dorothy guesses one more green ornament which reveals the gump. The king then demands them to stop and then picks up Pumpkinhead to eat unaware of Billina inside. As the king begins to put Jack into his mouth he then hears Billina laying an egg, which is poisonous to nomes. The egg falls out of Jack's head and into the king's mouth. He then lays Jack and Billina down as he begins to crumble.After the king and his nomes are completely crumbled away, her Ruby Slippers shines through the rubble. Dorothy then runs over to grab them and put them on as the whole mountain begins to crumble away. Dorothy wishes her and her friends back to Oz and the whole land to be restored, and it is granted.Dorothy and her friends then find themselves back in Oz with the Emerald City and it's people being restored in the distance. The caged Mombi also appears with them. Dorothy then discovers they didn't find Tick-Tock but Scarecrow sees a green ornament on gump's antlers. Dorothy guesses correctly and Tick-Tock is restored.The next scene shows the whole gang in a parade celebrating Dorothy's triumph and the restoration of Oz. Along with the new friends she had made, the Scarecrow, Tin Woodsman and the Cowardly Lion has now rejoined Dorothy. A few munchkins walk in front of them with Glinda following behind. Also in the parade is the Patchwork Girl and Mombi, who is now a prisoner of Oz.At the end of the parade Dorothy joins the Scarecrow on his throne and the crowd encourages her to be the Queen of Oz, but she reveals that she has to go back home. The crowd is dissappointed at this announcement. Just then Dorothy sees the image of the girl in the mirror again. She walks up to the mirror and pulls her out. The girl is revealed to be Ozma, the real Queen of Oz before the Wizard came. She also reveals that Mombi had imprisoned her in the mirror when she tried to scare her out of the city. Dorothy then puts the ruby slippers on Ozma's feet and asks her to wish her back to Kansas. Ozma agrees on the condition that she will look in on Dorothy from time to time and if she ever wishes to come back to Oz it will be granted. Dorothy agrees and Ozma taps the slippers three times while Dorothy says goodbye to her friends. Billina tells Dorothy that she had decided to stay in Oz instead of going back with her.The next scene shows Dorothy awakening back in Kansas. She hears Toto in the distance and she calls after him. Uncle Henry (Matt Clark) and a search party comes running up behind him and swoops Dorothy up in his arms after frantically searching for her for days. Aunt Em hugs Dorothy as a police buggy drives by with the head nurse from the clinic inside. Aunt Em tells her that the clinic had been struck by lightning during the storm and burnt to the ground with everyone inside being rescued except for the doctorThe final scene shows Dorothy in her newly finished bedroom with Toto. While in there Dorothy walks up to the mirror and calls for Oz and an image of Ozma, with Billina in her arms, appears. Dorothy calls for Aunt Em but Ozma puts a finger up to her mouth encouraging her not to. They continue smiling at each other and then Aunt Em appears in the doorway prompting them to dissappear and Dorothy to pull the mirror up. Aunt Em smiles at Dorothy and encourages her and Toto to go outside and play on that sunny day. The movie ends as they do just that.

Review: To truly understand and appreciate "Return to OZ", you've got to know two things.First off, this is NOT a follow-up to the classic MGM movie.
To top it all off, it turns out that Dorothy's buddies are really good at killing things; in particular the dear, heartless Tin Man who bloodies up his hatchet with unsettling apathy.What I'm trying to get at here is that "Return to OZ" is an OZ movie that is much more faithful to the books.
New characters, magic powders, creepier witches, talking chickens and flying couches - what more could an imaginative youngster want?!Faruiza Balk portayed Dorothy Gale exceptionally well, and at times, takes on Judy Garland's version so similair, it's scary!
Return To Oz was, I mean, is, better than the original, because it was more based on the books, whereas The Wizard Of Oz was a cross between the original book, bittersweet sets and a symphony orchestra.While some disagree, I believe that 'Return' was not all a weak sequel, but more of a non-sequel sequel, which had little to do with the original, and had an exciting, haunting, script, which worked really well.Well it's been about 10 years since I first saw Return To Oz, and I still think that it's one of the best children's movies ever made (however scary) and it's in everyone's best interests to rent it out - even if you hated it's predacessor..
At the time of release every critic bleated at the grim and melancholy tone of RETURN TO OZ, and sadly themselves neglected to celebrate the original book look, a choice Disney execs applauded themselves for.
Viewed 20 years later on a Disney DVD of dubious quality, I have to say it is a film more suited to these dark and disturbing times and if released today would certainly get a better reception and better crits...and possibly make a lot of money.
This film, along with "The Dark Crystal" and "The Neverending Story", was a huge favorite of mine when I was young and they seemly only got better with years.
Dorothy returns to Oz and teams up with Tik-Tok (a robot), Jack Pumpkinhead (a pumpkin man obviously) and the Gump (don't ask)to battle the evil Nome King and Princess Mombi.
Yes, it really is that good as Dorothy and friends meet up with the Scarecrow and battle the evil Nome King and Princess Mombi.The original Wizard Of Oz was a timeless classic still talked about today.
little dorothy walking down a corridor of decapitated head in ornate display cases, afraid that she might wake them, that the decapitated body would come in search of her in her terrifying gothic splendor-this moment has stayed with me, has always frightened me, but i'm glad that i experienced it, it is healthy for a child to be afraid, humility is something everyone needs to embrace, and this film with its lush terror and build up to a phenomenal climax as apocolyptic as anything today still inspires me toward something the silly set pieces and hammy emotion of Wizard of Oz, cannot do.
Child actress Fairuza Balk (now in such crap like "The Waterboy") is a very convincing Dorothy Gail, more so than Academy Award winner Judy Garland in the original.
In light of the violence in movies today I do not think it is out of the question to allow a ten year old to see it and if you are a teenager or older I would certainly recommend this film.
The imagery of this film lingers long after first view, and its marked stylistic and thematic differences to Wizard Of Oz have a hypnotic effect on a certain type of viewer.In Return, the central theme is one of deep unhappiness with reality and a wish to return to fantasy, where as Wizard focuses more on the concept of "there's no place like home".
Far scarier than the original movie in 1939, the new characters in Oz like Tik-Tok, Jack Pumkinhead, Mombi(Jean Marsh), and the Wheelers.
I can understand that fans of "Return to Oz" want to make a case for the movie, especially in light of its total commercial failure, but trashing "The Wizard of Oz" is no way to begin.
Do not be expecting this to be a continuation of the song and dance that was the wizard of oz, this is much closer to the books and far away from the rose tinted world of Judy Garland.If you don't like heads this film may be for you..
I to love Return to Oz, but do not think that it is any better then The Wizard of Oz, and you shouldn't compare the two, since they are two totally different films (and Return to Oz is NOT the sequel to the Judy Garland classic as many people wrongly assume) made in toally different times.
Normally I can't really fault disney movies as they are of such good quality but I honestly have no idea what they were thinking when they did return to Oz. To me it seemed more like a spinoff than a sequel and not a very good one at that.
Some other reviewer said this, but this is actually a horror movie, the last we saw Oz before Dorothy went home it was not like this Oz. This is apparently six months after that and something very bad has happened and it is up to Dorothy, her chicken, and the Royal army of Oz "Tic Toc" to find out what is going on.
Dorothy's return to the world of her imagination is similar in subject matter, with constant references to the MGM classic and cameos by all of the original characters, but feels much more twisted and sinister in tone.
These not-so-subtle continuity faults aside, the story is competently told, and Fairuza Balk makes a decent fist of playing the young Dorothy.Another plus in Return To Oz is that the support cast is considerably less annoying in its perpetual perkiness.
The symbolism from real world to fantasy world is well done; there are at least 3 actors who play dual roles.The villains in Return to Oz are especially memorable; it makes sense that in The Wizard of Oz we have popular heroes (Lion, Tin Man, Scarecrow) in a joyful film, while in Return to Oz we have memorable villains: the savage, insane Wheelers, evil Princess Mombie and the powerful Nome King in a dark film.
So, it's up to Dorothy and some creepy new friends to right everything and make the kingdom a happy one once again.If this doesn't sound like a good film for your kids, you are correct.
I like world cinema, art films and classics and Return to Oz is one of my favorite movies to watch.
Many people think the many bad reviews it received were planted as part of this strategy.That being said, the movie still lacks the cohesive story of the MGM Wizard of Oz, possibly because the script combines two of Baum's books.
Instead, they got a dark, creepy and sometimes scary trip akin to an "Indiana Jones" movie.All that was missing was Dorothy (Balk) wearing one of Indy's fedoras.This is clearly not a children's film, and any parent who lets an impressionable young child watch this film should have his head examined!
This is more of a special FX maker's film, with great and loving detail to all the effects paramount in the story, secondary to any consideration towards the actual plot.There are ingenious characters here, more familiar to those familiar with Baum's books.
Not a movie for the younger kids, Return To Oz is a dark fantasy set in the original Oz after almost everything has been destroyed or turned to stone.
This movie is pretty strange in that it is very dark and there are some scary characters such as the head changing evil princess Mombi & the fiendish Gnome King.
I saw this Disney version of RETURN to OZ when it was first released in theaters .One of the reasons i liked it over the original film version of OZ,is because Return-oz is most assuredly truer to the 2 Baum sequel novels that it is based on [ Road to oz and Ozma of Oz].
If it was about the story and characters, that's another matter.On an artistic, sensory-visual level Return to Oz is mostly spectacular work, with a plethora of eye-catching and inspired practical effects (one of which I have to imagine the character of Jack Skellington was the inspiration for), matte paintings, marionettes and puppets, claymation, the works, with an Emerald city that looks like a Russian communist block from that time period (and I mean that in a complimentary way - it's exquisitely run-down) .
They didn't have the strong-memorable personalities or sense of enchantment (or even just good acting) of the three that accompanied Dorothy in 'Wizard' - or, hell, even the companions in Oz: The Great and Powerful, which I'd argue is maybe a more inspired film than this, albeit with CGI.
And the villain - aho is appropriately bad-*ss and deranged, is only most effective by the third act, with a one-dimensional shrieking witch (albeit with wonderful multiple heads to choose from) in the rest of the film.So, Return to Oz is a really good movie.
It has great acting, a good story and the most important aspect for a family film, it appeals to kids and adults while never talking down to either group ONCE.
She meets companions such as Bellina, Tik Tok, Jack Pumpkinhead and a Gump (I'm not going to try and explain that, I don't even know how).The acting is absolutely marvelous, Fairuza Balk is who I think of whenever someone says "Dorothy Gale" to me because she just took that part and made it hers (which, considering the original was Judy Garland, thats not easy.
Modern family films are "ooh, look at the great visual effects." and everything else in terms of story and characters are unengaging and dull, the script talks to the audience as if it needs to hold its audience's hand through everything.
A lot like the original Star Wars trilogy.Overall, yes, this review might be bias due to how much I respect and love it but despite what critics who saw this film back then said, this film is an enjoyable film if you can let it sink in that "there are Oz reboots", you'll find something to enjoy about this film.
These books stayed with me for over 20 years...but I had forgotten over time what the name of the movie was with Mombi and the hall of heads and Jack Pumpkinhead.
The music score for this film was outstanding.This Dorothy was both physically and emotionally believable, unlike Judy Garland who was already acting like the big star she was.
Truly this film shows the Other side of Oz, the one people don't often know about.This film taking place after Dorothy returns to Oz has so many new characters that boggle the mind and fascinate you no end.
Some people might have a problem with this - and both these movies were commercial failures - but I loved spooky things as a kid, and neither of these two movies are scarier than some early Disney movies like Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs or Sleeping Beauty, or indeed The Wizard of Oz.Fairuza Balk is great as Dorothy, with just the right mix of wide-eyed innocence and slightly grown-up-ness.
RETURN TO OZ was created by Disney to be a sequel to the original book THE WONDERFUL WIZARD OF OZ by L.
The first time I ever saw Return to Oz ,i was seven years old.And call me a dork, but ten years later its still my favorite movie.And contrary to popular belief,I dont believe return to oz was suppossed to be a sequel to its precending The wizard of oz, but instead just an other artist interpretation of the classic story's.
To me Dorothy Gale is one of the only truly admirable heroine's in childrens literature.And as for anybody who knock's the film saying "its too scary"  and "nothing like the original "apParently they have never read any of the books, and why make a guess if its not an educated one?Because Oz is not this techno-colored land of singing midgets.
However charming the performances, and however colorful the sets, the Oz I read about just wasn't a place that looked anything like a musical shot on Hollywood sound stages.When Return to Oz came out, it was dismissed by some critics as "too dark".
Well, Oz was a pretty dark place, where Dorothy and various friends faced many enemies and Oz itself was surrounded by other lands of varying degrees of hostility.Return to Oz did a much better job of capturing the look and feel of Oz as it was portrayed in the original books.
This movie features Dorothy returning to Oz to find out that the evil Gnome King has turned the citizens of Emerald City into stone.
It could be thought that that makes it a bad film, however, that couldn't be further from the truth.It's about Dorothy (not Judy Garland, obviously) and her adventures as she's drawn back a second time to the magical land of Oz. Perhaps the main difference is the tone of the film.
Fairuza Balk has the difficult task of being the new Judy Garland, but she puts on a good performance as the small, vulnerable girl, lost in a much more nasty place than (the slightly older) Judy Garland had to survive in.If you're a fan of fantasy films (and of course the original) then you should enjoy this.
The Wizard of Oz has been deemed to be the classic children's movie that gets played countless times for kids, and adults who appreciate the piece that is nearing it's 80th anniversary all too quickly.
Again I might get flak for saying that but I actually enjoyed her performance, whereas with Garland I found her acting flat.The basic plot is that it is 6 months since Dorothy's Oz visit (judging on what things look like in Oz, I'm assuming it's non-canon with the 1939 film) and she has trouble sleeping.
Return to Oz is often referred to as a sequel to the "original" film Wizard of Oz, but this is not entirely true.
Also, the MGM's concept of Dorothy imagining Oz based on people she knows in the real world is mostly kept intact in Return to Oz. In the books, Baum created Oz as an unambiguous REAL world, not something out of a character's dreams or imagination.Return to Oz, besides being more realistic, much darker and not at all a musical, the movie is truer to the original Oz as described in Baum's books.
Also, Fairuza Balk was nine during the filming, which is much closer to the age of Dorothy Gale in the books than that of Judy Garland, who was 16.
The special effects are over the top though and it tries too hard to be charming, but unlike the original film, the real world of Kansas is too harsh and nasty for little kids to appreciate.
RETURN TO OZ is a really good film, which came out in 1985, starring Fairuza Balk as Dorothy Gale and Walter Murch as director.
This movie was so unbelievable (and dark) that I can honestly say it shocked and moved me more than Wizard of Oz did (and I will go as far as to say that Fairuza Balk was a better Dorothy to boot).
And I'm glad it doesn't, because I don't think you would have got an outcome like this!If you watch this film with film with an open mind, and not hoping for a sequel to Wizard, then Return, should be a pleasant surprise!!.
Tik-Tok is another good creation, full of character, but my favourite is Billina.RETURN TO OZ isn't a perfect film, as it does feel a bit uneven in terms of pacing and the opening sequences are perhaps a little too dark for kids.
OK, it's not as strong as the original due to it's flaws, but it's a very good sequel and a very underrated one at that.First of all, I like how the story doesn't repeat the original and it's darker tone is represented well throughout the film, but aside from it's decent character development, it does derive itself from two books of the Oz series "Land of Oz" and "Ozma of Oz".
Judy Garland's role as Dorothy was timeless), Jean Marsh is a menacing Mombi, Brian Henson is a wonderful sidekick Jack the Pumpkinhead and Nicol Williamson is a frightening Nome King.Overall, Return to Oz isn't as excellent as "The Wizard of Oz", but I can see why this got a cult following over the past few years and I would recommend this to those who haven't seen it..
Return to Oz is the kind of film that was doomed to fall between the cracks - too scary for kids (or rather, for parents), too childish for adults; the promotional material made too much of an effort to advertise it as a sequel to MGM's 1939 musical classic, doing it more damage than good; many claimed, and still do, that it was nothing but a trendy attempt to make The Wizard of Oz darker and edgier to appeal to modern audiences, and destroyed our precious childhood memories.
Like I said, this is very much an 80's fantasy movie, back when family films were dark, edgy and sometimes downright tragic.
Return to Oz was Fairuza Balk's movie debut playing Dorothy when she was a 10 or 11 years old little girl.
(Not too much, since they're still kid's books, but it is still there.) This one captures that feel much more than the original.If your kids are old enough to handle the slightly dark tone of this film (not too much, but still dark) they should easily fall in love with the imagination and the characters of this movie..