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It’s a big year for aspiring munchkins. The sequel to last year’s musical hit Wicked, Wicked: For Good, drops from the sky this November, and in a startling failure of linear storytelling, the sequel to both of those movies, 1939’s The Wizard of Oz, is now playing at Sphere. Only it’s not your parents’ (and your grandparents, and your great-grandparents’) Wizard of Oz. It’s been zhuzhed up to match Sphere’s massive, 160,000 square-foot, super high-resolution curved screen, 167,000-speaker 3D sound system and its raft of in-theater effects, from wind machines to in-seat haptic feedback. (It’s also been shrunk, in a way, but more on that in a moment).
The Wizard of Oz at Sphere recasts the beloved, iconic 86-year-old movie as an immersive entertainment with few peers. CGI and AI are used to expand the original film’s 1.37:1 aspect ratio—a nearly-square picture, in essence—to Sphere’s gigantic, entire-field-of-vision format. Characters who didn’t appear on screen previously are now represented: A shot that once featured only Dorothy, Scarecrow and Tin Man now includes the Cowardly Lion, lurking in foliage previously offscreen. Formerly painted backgrounds are replaced with photorealistic landscapes; the sepia-toned sky that stretches overhead during “Over the Rainbow” is now alive with clouds and flying birds, a fitting counterpart to the swoon-worthy, re-recorded instrumental score.
But no red-blooded American pays good money to watch clouds. No, you’re coming to Sphere to have your sequined slippers rocked off, dammit, and this Oz delivers, repeatedly. Fire effects bloom when our intrepid foursome enters the Wizard’s chambers. Flying monkey drones—oh, how long I’ve desired to type that phrase—circle the audience ominously. And the twister that carries Dorothy to Oz pretty much brings the house down with wind machines, booming sound, seat vibrations and swirling paper “debris.” It’s easily the most thrilling portion of the experience, and the best possible demonstration of what Sphere can do at the top of its abilities.
It’s an incredible ride. But The Wizard of Oz at Sphere isn’t a movie; not really. Some 27 minutes are cut from the film—dialogue, character beats, bits of songs, most of Professor Marvel’s and the Cowardly Lion’s performances (gone are both “Unusual weather we’re havin’, ain’t it” and “You clinking, clanking, clattering collection of caliginous junk!”) and an entire musical number, “If I Were King of the Forest.” Shot compositions are destroyed; often, characters are pushed to the absolute bottom of the screen, basically peering into the theater as if it they needed to stand on tiptoe to do it.
But that’s a discussion for cineastes and people who’ve internalized The Wizard of Oz to the point that these cuts and changes may feel too dear, and even some of those will doubtlessly be intrigued. This is cinema as theme park attraction, and theme park attraction as a spectacular waking hallucination. I’m glad I took the journey, even if it did muss my hair and did Bert Lahr dirty.
THE WIZARD OF OZ AT SPHERE Daily through March 31, 2025, various showtimes, $119. Sphere, thesphere.com.
English (US) ·