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Remember The Wizard?
trotski writes "I remember when I saw The Wizard as a kid, I thought it was the perfect movie. X-entertainment has released a review through the eyes of geek of this classic. Few movies have ever dwelled in pits of infamy quite so deep as The Wizard, Nintendo's 100-minute video game commercial that vaguely masqueraded as a real movie. The Wizard should've been able to keep kids well into their late teens interested, but the entire thing goes down the tubes once you hear the villainous cool kid's pickup line: "I love the Power Glove. It's so bad." The site includes video clips of this and other great moments in the movie."
There's also a
just-the-facts plot review of this timeless classic, at the Onion.
Compare it to videos that exist in their own right, rather than just to sell toys. Examples include Power Rangers, Transformers, Pokemon...
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
I saved up to buy a Power Glove but on the day that I went to buy one Toys R Us was all out...so I bought Legos with my money instead. That was a much better investment.
I'm 23 now, so when The Wizard came out I was still under the rules of the parents, and the rule handed down from my mother was, "You are NOT seeing this movie. I will not take you, you will NOT see it with your friends, understood?" As a child influenced by the pop-culture and of course being a big Nintendo fan, I was devestated, plus I never really understood why I wasn't allowed to see the movie. All I knew is that my parents told me that I'd one day understand why they wouldn't let me see it.
I finally saw it when the movie made it to TV a few years later, but still being a young teenager I just enjoyed those video game references. After seeing it a few more times here and there on cable did I realize why I wasn't allowed to see it. This movie has got to be the single worst movie ever made. Now obviously this is a movie straight out of the mass-marketing, greed, product-placement superextraveganza we call the 1980's, so we can't blame Nintendo for trying with that aspect, but we can blame them for this...
Here's what had to have been going through the minds of the screenwriters:
Screenwriter 1: "Hey, let's create a 100 minute long commercial and here's the kicker, this kid, 'The Wizard', will play a new unreleased videogame."
Screenwriter 2: "Great! But let's make the kid on the brink of mental destruction because he watched his twin sister drown a few years before. Then we'll have his brother kidnap him, take him cross-country to california where they meet up with a girl, and they'll force the kid to play video games for money!"
Screenwriter 1: "Outstanding! While we're at it, let's have the girl, who hasn't even come close to puberty shout 'He touched my breasts!' It'll be great because she has no breasts and she's a little girl! The moviegoers will love it!"
Screenwriter 2: "Aren't we just the worst screenwriters in history?"
Screenwriter 1: "And how!"
I really don't blame my parents at all now. I really can't fathom the minds behind this movie (with the exception of the product placement part). I mean, they made this kid be in a state of mental destruction because he watched his sister die, he's kidnapped and FORCED to play video games, and nobody seems to care that he just wants to go see some dinosaur park in California which has some special meaning because of some past trip there with his now dead sister.
Not to flame anybody here but how can anyone really call this movie good? Walking commercial? Yes it is, but good movie? Hell no.