Force Fed Films: The Wizard

Today I get the wonderful opportunity to watch another 80’s kid’s flick. And yes I probably will compare this movie to The Navigator, Explorers and even The Last Starfighter. They are all children’s movies dealing with some great adventure, of course with no parents to look over them. So yet again, I am a 21 year old watching a movie made for the younger audience. I just hope this somewhat entertains me and isn’t too childish, but who am I kidding, I don’t know anyone more childish then me. Anyways, more details about "The Wizard" after the jump.

We catch up with Jimmy Woods (coined The Wizard by Corey) who’s walking down a lone road when a Police Officer pulls up beside him and reports back that he ‘found him’. Jimmy Woods has this desire to go to California for some odd reason, which both his divorced parents can’t understand. Everyone assumes Jimmy is mentally handicapped so he gets all this special treatment. But his step-brother Corey has had enough of this. Corey breaks him out of the home for handicapped kids and they travel to California. On their way there, they meet a young girl by the name of Haley who helps them on their way. With her streets smarts, Jimmy’s amazing video game skills and Corey’s wiliness. They decide instead of going to California, to go to Reno for a huge Video Game championship to win $50,000.

Nothing makes panties drop faster than THE POWER GLOVE.

Again, I realllllllly wish I was a kid when I saw this movie. I know I would have loved it, even to this day I found a little charm in this movie that I fell for. I know for a fact that when I was young, I would of love to just travel with some friends on the road. Hell, I still want to do that. But it is just the innocence of this movie that catches me. In particular, how everything can have a childish equivalent to a mature moment. For example, there is a young girl walking (waitress) around with candies (drinks) on a dish she is carrying in the arcade (which looks like a casino). I just find this really funny and I am sure I’ve dreamed up something like that when I was a child.

I can totally relate this movie to The Goonies or the novels with Tom Sawyer (mean mean pride). It’s adventure and fun with those pesky adults getting in the way of our fun. Sadly I don’t think this movie really captures that adventurous spirit. Their trip is rather dull and repetitive. Once they discover Jimmy’s skill of video games, they exploit this and get money. But they right after they lose that money by some obstacle. Rise and repeat. Sadly this is the majority of the movie.

Jimmy, Haley and Corey enjoy their trip back home. On the back of a truck, safe eh?

Though the end of the movie makes it up when they finally get to the big Video Game championship. And as an early Nintendo nerd, I was blown away by the amount of nostalgia; Scenes of Contra, Super Mario Brothers 2 & 3 and even some Ninja Gaiden. I do have a soft spot for watching these short gameplay scenes. Especially the big final match where they play Mario World 3 for the first time, yeah they loop a few clips over and over again. And yes the ending was especially cheesy, but hey this was the 80’s and we are talking about the early days of home entertainment.

Even with all the video game bits and the neat adventure idea. I am not too sure if I enjoyed this movie a whole lot. I mean there are a lot of other movies that do adventure or video games a lot better than The Wizard, so why watch this? I really wouldn’t recommend this to anyone; young kids won’t get it because the video games are in 2D with a live system. The older audience would probably get bored at the generic story and average everything. With all that in mind, I guess I didn’t like this movie, so sad it had potential.