If your little ones have seen "The Wizard of Oz" too many times, you might introduce them to this alternative magical adventure, featuring two much younger twin girls as the main characters. Of course, this '93 made-for-TV production isn't nearly as polished as "The Wizard..." Nonetheless, many magical things happen, to perhaps even keep adults entertained. I can't believe the abysmally low mean rating here at IMDB, and neither can most of the few other reviewers!! Also, I doubt if it's as scary to kids as the "The Wizard...." I was scared out of my wits when I first saw "The Wizard....." in a dark theater, at perhaps age 5. My friend went screaming out of the theater when he saw the abducting flying monkeys!.... I just wish this film had been made two years later, as in "It Takes Two", when the twins were about 8, so that their speech would have been more understandable, and their partnership with various men would have been a bit more believable and less cringeworthy.
The twins run away from their parents, and eventually meet up with and travel with 3 odd men, one, two or three at a time, although not nearly as odd as the 3 'men' Dorothy traveled with in "The Wizard......". Mr. N is a well-spoken homeless black man, who sort of reminds me of Uncle Remis, in "Song of the South" back in the '40s. Oscar the clown is a 'little person', the same height as the girls, perhaps reminding us of The Munchkins in "The Wizard....." He lives in a house with very low ceilings and gives them a magic wand to enhance their apparent twin-derived magic powers. The skinny very neurotic Gravedigger, very afraid of their miserly witch-like Aunt Agatha, sometimes joins and helps the twins.
The twins are on a mission to try to steal Agatha's flashing Magic Moonstone she keeps on a necklace, so that they can release Agatha's generous twin sister from her imprisonment in Agatha's magic mirror, so that she can hopefully loan their parents the money they need to avoid foreclosure on their house.
It's confusing that Agatha craves the Magic Moonstone, yet clearly has magical properties without it. It seems to enhance her magical abilities, as it does the girl's lesser such abilities...........Like the wicked witch in "The Wizard.....", evil Aunt Agatha vanishes at the end, being trapped in her broken mirror, where she had previously banished her twin. Bizarrely, after the girls no longer need the Magic Moonstone, it develops a leak, and deflates! Moonstones, of course, are actually a semi-precious stone, which have sometimes been credited with healing properties.
The twins run away from their parents, and eventually meet up with and travel with 3 odd men, one, two or three at a time, although not nearly as odd as the 3 'men' Dorothy traveled with in "The Wizard......". Mr. N is a well-spoken homeless black man, who sort of reminds me of Uncle Remis, in "Song of the South" back in the '40s. Oscar the clown is a 'little person', the same height as the girls, perhaps reminding us of The Munchkins in "The Wizard....." He lives in a house with very low ceilings and gives them a magic wand to enhance their apparent twin-derived magic powers. The skinny very neurotic Gravedigger, very afraid of their miserly witch-like Aunt Agatha, sometimes joins and helps the twins.
The twins are on a mission to try to steal Agatha's flashing Magic Moonstone she keeps on a necklace, so that they can release Agatha's generous twin sister from her imprisonment in Agatha's magic mirror, so that she can hopefully loan their parents the money they need to avoid foreclosure on their house.
It's confusing that Agatha craves the Magic Moonstone, yet clearly has magical properties without it. It seems to enhance her magical abilities, as it does the girl's lesser such abilities...........Like the wicked witch in "The Wizard.....", evil Aunt Agatha vanishes at the end, being trapped in her broken mirror, where she had previously banished her twin. Bizarrely, after the girls no longer need the Magic Moonstone, it develops a leak, and deflates! Moonstones, of course, are actually a semi-precious stone, which have sometimes been credited with healing properties.