It’s entirely possible when you were in the movie theatre watching Avengers: Age of Ultron that you did not think of mashing Marvel’s latest blockbuster with one of the greatest films of all time, 1939’s The Wizard of Oz.
But thank the movie gods, YouTube user and mash-up artist and movie lampoonist extraordinaire Darren Wallace, who gave us inspired riffs on Jurassic World and the upcoming new Star Wars instalment, did with the supremely entertaining result being Avengers of Oz: Age of Tinman.
Playing the part of the antagonist, and rather well I might add is the Tin Man himself, played in the original film by Jack Haley, who neatly steps, and quite a bit more effectively too, into the role of Ultron who you could well argue was a rather anaemic bad guy (despite all of James Spader’s best silken efforts to invest him with some villainous gravitas).
Arrayed against him, and his sidekicks – the Wicked Witch of the West as Scarlet Witch (/Margaret Hamilton/Elizabeth Olson) and a flying monkey as Quicksilver (Harry Monty/Aaron Taylor-Johnsson) – is Dorothy as Black Widow (Judy Garland/Scarlett Johansson), The Cowardly Lion as Thor (Bert Lahr/Chris Hemsworth) and the Scarecrow as Iron Man (Ray Bolger/Robert Downey Jr.).
Wallace claims at the start of his mash-up “The following makes no sense” but frankly who cares when it’s this clever, this much fun and gives you an entirely new sense of what’s capable in the wonderful land of Oz, and moviemaking generally.