The WizardFor grown-ups in the Eighties, the mania kids had playing Nintendo must have seemed inscrutable; but it was serious fun, rich with competition and achievement. The Wizard is a kids movie about a quiet video game savant named Jimmy Woods (Luke Edwards), who travels across the Southwestern United States with his brother, Corey (Fred Savage), and a fellow hitchhiker named Haley Brooks (Jenny Lewis). Their destination is a Nintendo video game championship called "Video Armageddon", with a prize of fifty-thousand dollars for the greatest gamer. The trio plans to enter Jimmy as a contender, who they call "The Wizard" for his uncanny skill at the most popular Nintendo games.
|
|
Jimmy's trek to California--first attempted by walking across the desert--is related to a residual form of post-traumatic stress from two years prior when he witnessed his twin sister drowned; it is implied that this was also the reason for the break up of his family. Jimmy was left in the custody of his mother, Christine (Wendy Phillips), and his arrogant stepfather (Sam McMurray), while his father, Sam (Beau Bridges), struggles to take care of Corey and his eldest son, Nick (Christian Slater). The surviving members of the Woods family are still burdened with grief; this is why Jimmy persists in running away, which ultimately gets him committed to a mental health facility for children that redefines "minimum security". Convinced that his half-brother deserves better, Corey breaks him out of the home and decides to aid him in his presumed journey to California--based on Jimmy repeating the name over and over--while they are pursued by a sleazy and unscrupulous pseudo-bounty hunter in a bolo tie named Putnam (Will Seltzer). (Putnam actually threatens Sam to deter him from following him shortly after they first meet--real nice guy.) The Wizard is not really a movie about grief, but it does acknowledge that kids' feelings of loss and abandonment are real--which is appropriate since this movie is unquestionably targeted toward adolescents. Even Haley masks these feelings--her mother fell prey to a gambling addiction and left her and her trucker father by themselves to live in a dusty trailer; her father is also never around. The Wizard is also a road movie; despite the inherent dangers of hitchhiking that are never really addressed, the trio of kids cover their distance through the vast Southwest by thumbing for rides and using Jimmy to hustle arcade players for some quick cash. (Haley's own preternatural aptitude for craps in her home town of Reno, Nevada suggests that they should be gambling instead--seriously, who bets on "hard eight"?) Bods of friendship form between Jimmy, Corey, and Haley--bolstered by the genuine charisma and chemistry between Fred Savage and Jenny Lewis. Sam and Nick search for the runaways in their landscaping pickup truck, while repeatedly clashing with Putnam and dealing with their own unresolved feelings of grief, which includes staying up late and playing "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" on the NES that Nick fixes. By the time everyone convenes at the Universal Studios theme park where the tournament is held, the family has overcome the walls they erected to shut out the hurt over losing Jennifer, and are made whole once more.
A common criticism of The Wizard is that it is essentially a two-hour Nintendo commercial. It has a fairly implausible plot which has more to do with winning a tournament than coming to terms with a loss of a loved one. Consider when Sam and Nick show up at an out of the way roadside diner, and cross paths (yet again) with Putnam, a punk who stole Jimmy's hat emblazoned with the family's business logo on it, and the "cooler-than-thou" Power Glove enthusiast, Lucas Barton (Jackey Vinson), all at once--a convenient way to push the plot forward, even if by brute force. The Wizard is filled with scenes that deliberately cater to fans of the Nintendo Entertainment System, presuming that kids will lose focus on the plot, and filling the gaps with cameo appearances of their favorite NES classics--like "Mega Man 2", "Ninja Gaiden", or "Double Dragon"--that are shoehorned into the plot. Consider when Sam stays up all night playing Nintendo, commenting that he "almost beat Mechaturtle at the end of level three"; this kind of dialogue is written for the kids, and is something no Nintendo neophyte would say. Other scenes test the limits of the audience's ability to suspend disbelief, like when Corey and Jimmy stow away on a Hostess delivery truck, and the driver continues to make deliveries, totally ignorant of the kids in the back. They skateboard down the highway--on the same skateboard--and Corey's heretofore unspoken Boy Scout skills kick in on their first night away; he's able to procure actual firewood for their camp...in the desert. Corey brings a loaded backpack on his mission to save Jimmy, but does he bring useful things like food? No; he brings rubber monster masks and creepy crawlers, which he uses to try to scare Haley. While it's plausible that Corey may have brought his own change of clothes, Haley is magically is able to change outfits, even though she doesn't carry anything around with her.
After Corey hustles Haley at an arcade game (via Jimmy), she has the idea that he should enter Video Armageddon on the condition that they split the grand prize, even though there is no evidence that Jimmy has had any prior experience playing video games. Jimmy is clearly a savant at Nintendo, but after a sobering encounter with Lucas, Corey and Haley conclude that Jimmy must go on a serious video game training regimen before the tournament. This leads to an over-the-top montage including Haley's repeat phone calls to an unlikely "Nintendo gameplay counselor", who pours through binders for cheat codes and exclusive tips. (Ah, the days before the internet...) Lucas is an unlikable creep consistent with other Eighties-era kids movie antagonists, like Johnny Lawrence of The Karate Kid; with his preened hair and wraparound shades, he's like a cross between Zack Morris and a proto-Billy Mitchell. When he first shows up, a riff from The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly emphasizes that this is who Jimmy has to beat to prove he's worthy of his moniker of "The Wizard". (To Lucas's credit, he's pretty capable with his beloved Power Glove, which--speaking from experience--was a piece of garbage that didn't make beeps or bloops like Close Encounters of the Third Kind.) The Wizard was originally conceived by Universal to capitalize on the burgeoning popularity of Nintendo's video game tournaments, and climaxes with the tantalizing reveal of the long-awaited and subsequently best-selling "Super Mario Bros. 3". (It even manages to showcase one of the most iconic secrets of the game--the warp whistle--which Haley somehow recognizes, despite the game being as of yet unreleased in the United States.) Seeing a brand new Mario game before its release--to be honest--was a major thrill for kids like myself, even if the tournament's basis for scoring always seemed pretty ridiculous. The Wizard is an indulgent romp through Nintendo-era gaming from the point of view of its target audience, and has gone on to become a camp classic and monument to the enduring appeal of retro video games.
Recommended for: Fans of an unabashed exercise in pandering to a target audience (kids who love video games) while showcasing several vintage Nintendo classics. The Wizard is laden with Eighties tropes and cliches--from the fashion, dialogue, and multiple montages set to rock music--making it a film which survives not by its technical prowess but because of its rare blend of absurdity and nostalgia.
A common criticism of The Wizard is that it is essentially a two-hour Nintendo commercial. It has a fairly implausible plot which has more to do with winning a tournament than coming to terms with a loss of a loved one. Consider when Sam and Nick show up at an out of the way roadside diner, and cross paths (yet again) with Putnam, a punk who stole Jimmy's hat emblazoned with the family's business logo on it, and the "cooler-than-thou" Power Glove enthusiast, Lucas Barton (Jackey Vinson), all at once--a convenient way to push the plot forward, even if by brute force. The Wizard is filled with scenes that deliberately cater to fans of the Nintendo Entertainment System, presuming that kids will lose focus on the plot, and filling the gaps with cameo appearances of their favorite NES classics--like "Mega Man 2", "Ninja Gaiden", or "Double Dragon"--that are shoehorned into the plot. Consider when Sam stays up all night playing Nintendo, commenting that he "almost beat Mechaturtle at the end of level three"; this kind of dialogue is written for the kids, and is something no Nintendo neophyte would say. Other scenes test the limits of the audience's ability to suspend disbelief, like when Corey and Jimmy stow away on a Hostess delivery truck, and the driver continues to make deliveries, totally ignorant of the kids in the back. They skateboard down the highway--on the same skateboard--and Corey's heretofore unspoken Boy Scout skills kick in on their first night away; he's able to procure actual firewood for their camp...in the desert. Corey brings a loaded backpack on his mission to save Jimmy, but does he bring useful things like food? No; he brings rubber monster masks and creepy crawlers, which he uses to try to scare Haley. While it's plausible that Corey may have brought his own change of clothes, Haley is magically is able to change outfits, even though she doesn't carry anything around with her.
After Corey hustles Haley at an arcade game (via Jimmy), she has the idea that he should enter Video Armageddon on the condition that they split the grand prize, even though there is no evidence that Jimmy has had any prior experience playing video games. Jimmy is clearly a savant at Nintendo, but after a sobering encounter with Lucas, Corey and Haley conclude that Jimmy must go on a serious video game training regimen before the tournament. This leads to an over-the-top montage including Haley's repeat phone calls to an unlikely "Nintendo gameplay counselor", who pours through binders for cheat codes and exclusive tips. (Ah, the days before the internet...) Lucas is an unlikable creep consistent with other Eighties-era kids movie antagonists, like Johnny Lawrence of The Karate Kid; with his preened hair and wraparound shades, he's like a cross between Zack Morris and a proto-Billy Mitchell. When he first shows up, a riff from The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly emphasizes that this is who Jimmy has to beat to prove he's worthy of his moniker of "The Wizard". (To Lucas's credit, he's pretty capable with his beloved Power Glove, which--speaking from experience--was a piece of garbage that didn't make beeps or bloops like Close Encounters of the Third Kind.) The Wizard was originally conceived by Universal to capitalize on the burgeoning popularity of Nintendo's video game tournaments, and climaxes with the tantalizing reveal of the long-awaited and subsequently best-selling "Super Mario Bros. 3". (It even manages to showcase one of the most iconic secrets of the game--the warp whistle--which Haley somehow recognizes, despite the game being as of yet unreleased in the United States.) Seeing a brand new Mario game before its release--to be honest--was a major thrill for kids like myself, even if the tournament's basis for scoring always seemed pretty ridiculous. The Wizard is an indulgent romp through Nintendo-era gaming from the point of view of its target audience, and has gone on to become a camp classic and monument to the enduring appeal of retro video games.
Recommended for: Fans of an unabashed exercise in pandering to a target audience (kids who love video games) while showcasing several vintage Nintendo classics. The Wizard is laden with Eighties tropes and cliches--from the fashion, dialogue, and multiple montages set to rock music--making it a film which survives not by its technical prowess but because of its rare blend of absurdity and nostalgia.