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The Wizard: Movie Review By: PoisonRamune, the Apathetic Lizardman
If you’re a personal friend of mine, you’ll know that I’m a big fan of camp. I love finding things that are so bad that they are actually appealing. It’s refreshing to see something that’s good in a non-formulaic way. Universal Pictures’ “The Wizard” is one of those movies that proudly wears its campiness like a medal of honor. While often being lauded as a 90 minute commercial for the Power Glove peripheral and Super Mario Bros. 3, “The Wizard” holds a special place in the hearts of many classic gamers. Even though the game has many blatant errors about video game dynamics and gameplay, the movie still has a large cult fan base of gamers. The movie stars: Fred Savage (pre-Wonder Years), Luke Edwards, and Jenny Lewis (before she became sex on wheels) in a hitch hiking adventure from Salt Lake City, Utah to Los Angeles, California. Corey (Fred Savage) and Jimmy (Luke Edwards) are trying to make their way to California to keep Jimmy out of an asylum and Haley (Jenny Lewis) has a neglectful father who just dumps her 300 miles from their home (in his defense, Haley is a bitch throughout the movie, so she probably had it coming). However, they’re brought together by their love for video games, as they try to enter Jimmy in a Nintendo Tournament held in Hollywood to prove that he doesn’t belong in an institution. Despite the potential dangers of hitch hiking through 3 states; the children are only met with minor setbacks such as: hillbilly truckers trying to steal their cash, 20 something year old bullies getting punchy after losing a game of Top Speed to Jimmy, and being pursued by some creepy, chain smoking bounty hunter that looks more like a child molester than a man who retrieves run away children (but then again, maybe you need to be a pedophile to find a hiding kid). Ever since I had seen this movie, I had this hidden desire to hitch hike across the country while betting against people at local arcades for cash. However, with my small build I’d probably end up as some 300lb trucker’s little Asian bitch.
The entire world of “The Wizard” is a little weird in that everyone loves video games. In fact, there are only 2 characters that don’t end up falling in love with Nintendo by the end of the movie. However, in a way Nintendo somewhat predicted this phenomenon, as people now love the Wii in the same ridiculous way Nintendo portrayed people loving the NES in the film. As this movie was basically made to sell a new controller and Mario game to kids across America, the writing really wasn’t its strong point. However, much of the acting in this movie is top notch. Most notable is the role of Corey played by Fred Savage, since he suffers the same problem that Shia LaBeouf does in Transformers in that they’re acting too good for the movie they’re starring in. Another amazing display of acting is by Jackey Vinson who plays Jimmy’s rival, Lucas Barton (the only person who owned a Power Glove in 1989). His portrayal of an obnoxious douche was spot on and very believable, I’m almost willing to say that Vinson has a younger sibling who was at the brunt end of wise-cracks and put downs on a daily basis.
It’s really hard for me not to recommend this movie to a gamer or even mention anything bad about it, since anything that would detriment this film actually makes it better. Even when there’s some sort of continuity error in Beau Bridges talking about his Zelda 2 playthrough, there’s still some charm to his lines. If you’re a gamer and have never seen this movie, then you’re really missing out. Netflix this ASAP! Or better yet, buy it at your local store since I think it’s retailing for around $8.99 (at least that’s what I paid when it first came out on DVD). Final verdict:
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