Sphere's AI-assisted ‘Wizard of Oz' is an immersive spectacle. If it only had a heart

Las Vegas venue turns the 1939 classic into a 4D experience, but loses some magic.

- AMY NICHOLSON FILM CRITIC

RICH FURY Sphere Entertainment "THE WIZARD OF OZ" has been digitally remastered and expanded using generative AI and other high tech to fit the gigantic screen at Las Vegas' Sphere.

"The Wizard of Oz" is certainly the right movie to face the great and powerful ambitions of Sphere, the most expensive entertainment venue in Las Vegas history.

Since 1939, the treasured classic has hailed the awe of gazing into a glowing globe, whether it’s glinting atop a fortune teller's table, transporting the meddlesome Glinda the Good Witch or spying on a teenage girl and her companions like a sinister security camera.

Special effects are central both to "Oz's" appeal and its plot: The big reveal is that technicians, not wizards, pull the levers that make an audience gasp. For Sphere — officially, there’s no “the” — those tools include three football fields of bright 16K LED screens that curve around its domed interior, with another 10 on the outside that light up Vegas day and night with rotating animations. (I saw blue gingham, scarlet sequins and thatches of burlap and straw.) Sphere cost an estimated $2.3 billion to build and must have an electricity bill scarier than the Wicked Witch. You can make out Dorothy’s slippers from an airplane.

With no heel clicks needed, I was whisked to “The Wizard of Oz’s” Sphere premiere in a red sedan by a Lyft driver named — no fooling — Ruby, who said she was grateful that the Backstreet Boys' recent stint at the arena “made Vegas busy for a minute.” There's a lot of financial pressure on “Oz’s” girl from Kansas.