Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		3.0
Overall		3.5

Tin Man Blu-ray Movie Review

This Yellow Brick Road is covered with a few too many brambles to ever get over the rainbow.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman July 11, 2010

Remember those halcyon days of yesteryear when Syfy was the Sci Fi Channel and walking down the vaunted Yellow Brick Road meant The Wizard of Oz, or at the very least Elton John? Then you’re most likely the wrong demographic to completely enjoy Tin Man, the post-modernist winkfest revision of L. Frank Baum’s masterpiece. The irony of course is that Tin Man originally aired when Syfy was the Sci Fi Channel, as part of that network’s burgeoning entrée into original film-length programming, a trend that has continued with a handful of these “reimaginings” of well-known source material (e.g., Alice, the recent update of Alice in Wonderland). The first question one is prone to ask when confronted with one of these strange mélanges is, “Was this really necessary?,” to which I rather forcefully answer, “No, of course not.” Given that preemptive strike, you might think that Tin Man is just another worthless telefilm, an okay time killer and little else. Perhaps elevated by its relatively high budget (at least in the picayune terms of television—if you can $20 million picayune), some appealing performances, and an imaginative production design (including some above average CGI), Tin Man manages to at least partially escape the black hole it dug for itself by basing itself on one of the best-known and most beloved sources in the modern entertainment era. Anyone who was born in the post-WWII timeframe, at least in the western world, has no doubt seen The Wizard of Oz multiple times, so often in fact that the typical viewer can recite lines along with Dorothy, the Scarecrow, the Cowardly Lion, and, yes, the Tin Man, not to mention Oz himself. True aficionados can quote “Yip” Harburg’s lyrics verbatim and hum large swaths of Harold Arlen’s gorgeous song score. If fewer have actually read Baum’s source novel, the basic outline of the plot and certainly the characters themselves are so soundly imprinted on most people’s consciousnesses that it seems almost brash to attempt a re-do.

Zooey Deschanel is D.G.

Part of what both benefits and unfortunately harms Tin Man’s “new, improved” exposition is that it is one of the more complex scenarios a television miniseries has undertaken in quite some time, one that relies on its audience’s familiarity with The Wizard of Oz, while also totally skewing the source elements into new directions and meanings. Therefore, we are greeted with an adult “Dorothy”, one D.G. (Zooey Deschanel), who finds herself transported to the Outer Zone (O.Z., in this evidently acronym laden universe) via a sort of storm portal. D.G. has been having visions of a violet-eyed woman, and upon landing in the strange, alien world of the Outer Zone, finds out that her Kansan parents were actually androids and the woman in her dreams is her actual biological mother. With us so far? D.G. is soon accompanied by an updated version of the Scarecrow, this time named Glitch (Alan Cumming), who reveals that part of his brain has been removed by O.Z.’s evil sorceress, Azkadellia (Kathleen Robertson). Soon they’re joined by the Tin Man (Neal McDonough), a former lawman (the “tin” was originally his badge, though he was later imprisoned in a tin suit for disobeying Azkadellia) and Raw (Raoul Trujillo), our Cowardly Lion doppelgänger who in this version is a telepathic seer whose people have been enslaved by Azkadellia. Obviously, Tin Man is not the stuff of jaunty choruses of “Follow the yellow brick road.”

In fact it’s this very dourness which tends to sink Tin Man even as its flights of fancy repeatedly attempt to get it airborne. Things get considerably more convoluted than even the above paragraph might suggest, with a series of rather inventive denouements in the final third of the miniseries which at least partially redeem the overly labyrinthine set up. What is missing here, and something that is absolutely essential for any piece even considering referencing The Wizard of Oz, let alone outright riffing on it, as is the case here, is a sense of magic. This is one of the most relentlessly depressing miniseries that doesn’t have a Holocaust in it that I personally have experienced.

But all is not lost. Tin Man manages to eke out some of its fitful entertainment value with some engaging performances, including a sort of wide-eyed naïf turn by Deschanel, an actress who can be overly mannered and tic-filled, but who here manages to craft a believably modern character caught in a completely alien environment. D.G.’s supporting triumvirate are all excellent, with Cumming nicely channeling the loose limbed nuttiness of Ray Bolger without ever outright mimicking him, and McDonough doing a stern and stolid turn as an emotionally devastated man of tin (think broken, if not exactly missing, heart). (Speaking of tic-filled actors, Richard Dreyfuss at least gums, if not outright chews, the scenery in a cameo as this O.Z.’s “Wizard,” a self-described Mystic Man). Tin Man in fact does manage to recast its drama in its own peculiar light rather effectively at least some of the time, certainly in terms of the performances, but lovers of the Baum book and especially the Garland film are going to wonder where the fun and wonder are, at least some of the time.

The other saving grace here is a spectacularly successful production design, courtesy of Michael Joy, Paolo G. Venturi, Mark Lane and Angus Strathie. This O.Z. is a sort of neo-fascist Fellini-esque nightmare vision which is perfectly realized, and which helps to transport the viewer to a chilling new landscape where happy little Munchkins are just as likely to gnaw at your kneecaps as they are to represent the Lollipop Guild. An impressive array of special effects helps to elevate the miniseries’ visual appeal, though truth be told these effects never completely rise to the shock and awe ILM level.

Tin Man went to air with a tough row to hoe, with enormous expectations and a built-in comparison factor which was almost sure to backfire, considering the esteem in which the 1939 film is held. For that reason alone, I’m willing to cut this attempt more than a little slack. What could have really provided some backup for this slack cutting would have been more of a sense of childlike magic and wonder, rather than an oppressively “adult” oriented downer syndrome. Tin Man frequently comes off like Eugene O’Neill reciting a fairy tale, and it’s a very, very odd juxtaposition. A little less “inner” in this Outer Zone would have elevated this often very inventive approach over the television rainbow.

Tin Man Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Tin Man came out on SD-DVD a couple of years ago and looked pretty darned good indeed. Prepare yourself for a rather amazing upgrade with this new Blu-ray, which deserves kudos for its full 1080p presentation with a VC-1 codec and a 1.78:1 aspect ratio. Two aspects of the image are noticeably better on this release, the sharpness and the saturation of the color. While there was certainly nothing to complain about on the SD-DVD release, the difference here is more than noticeable, with a crispness of detail that really helps to make this one of the best looking television releases in recent memory. Colors are robust and otherworldly at times, and detail on the costumes and sets is uniformly excellent. Even the matte paintings look better on this release, with more fine detail readily apparent in even fleeting shots. While the superior resolution of the BD puts the lie to some of the CGI elements, they also look decidedly better than they did on the SD-DVD, and are typically far above average for a television movie. Everything from the blood-red lounge of the Mystic Man to the icy blue-white expanses of the northern ice territories of O.Z. are brilliantly reproduced on the Blu-ray. Flesh tones, black levels and contrast are all top notch here. The miniseries itself may have its share of flaws, but the image quality here is excellent.

Tin Man Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Also very impressive, at least in the often less ambitious world of television, is the lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix provided on this Blu-ray. There are a wealth of immersive ambient effects throughout this series, including some very fun "nature" sounds as our intrepid quartet (later quintet) makes their journey through various alien landscapes. In several interior scenes featuring crowds, voices and ambient clutter fill the surrounds with a very lifelike immersive quality. Dialogue is crisp and clean and foley effects and underscore are very well mixed into the overall soundfield. Tin Man may not have the magic of a Harold Arlen-"Yip" Harburg score, but for a television science fiction "spectacular", it provides a lot of zip and zing which this DTS rendering reproduces with adroit fidelity and excellent dynamic range.

Tin Man Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

An above-average slew of supplements (all SD) are included on this BD, only some of which appeared previously on the two disc SD-DVD edition.

• Beyond the Yellow Brick Road: The Making of Tin Man (21:55), is one of the less thrilling featurettes included on the disc, pretty standard EPK fare with interviews and some behind the scenes footage.
• Nick Willing: On Set with the Director (6:02), though a good deal briefer, offers some interesting insight into Willing's approach to this project.
• Wizard Tricks—Gag Reel (9:21), is pretty forgettable stuff, often just a second or two of goofy face-making by the cast.
• The Brain, Heart and Courage of the Movie features interviews with most of the principal cast and the director. Willing (24:15), Cumming (11:23), McDonough (9:35), Deschanel (14:48) and Robertson (10:26) all answer unedited questions from an offstage voice. It's obvious these were the same sit-downs as were edited into some of the other featurettes included on this disc. While Cumming and Willing sound at least relatively erudite and involved, let's just be charitable and say that Deschanel probably won't be joining Phi Beta Kappa anytime soon.
• Raw and Uncut: A Sitdown With Raoul Trujillo (15:40) is for some reason not included in the interviews above, though it is in the same format and covers much of the same material.
• Making the Mystic Man (36:36) is one of the more interesting featurettes included on the disc, at least for those who like to see filming in process. We see this segment being filmed with Willing and Dreyfus, and then the final cut scene (unfortunately in SD) is presented, fully edited with underscore. It's a neat little lesson in the nuts and bolts of filmmaking.
• The Original Trailer rounds out the supplements.

Tin Man Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Tin Man deserves props for attempting the probably impossible: reinventing The Wizard of Oz while attempting to escape any outright comparison with either the Baum novel or the iconic 1939 MGM masterpiece. Unfortunately, that ambition isn't just probably impossible, it is impossible, and there's the rub. Tin Man can never escape the comparisons, no matter how hard or cleverly it tries, and so it's bound to come up short. Given that caveat, however, there's actually quite a bit to enjoy here, at least in dribs and drabs. The production design is quite stunning, the performances are enjoyable, and some of the admittedly opaque twists and turns the plot take have at least some passing emotional resonance and do manage to touch upon the well-known source elements and skew them in unexpected ways. Tin Man also looks and sounds spectacular in this new Blu-ray edition, so fans of the miniseries (and they are legion) will no doubt want to pick this up. Others may want to rent it first to see if this particular yellow brick road gets them where they want to go.