The Wizard (1989)
The Cast
Fred Savage ... Corey Woods
Luke Edwards ... Jimmy Woods
Wendy Phillips ... Christine Bateman
Sam McMurray ... Bateman
Beau Bridges ... Sam Woods
Christian Slater ... Nick Woods
Will Seltzer ... Putnam
Jenny Lewis ... Haley
Beth Grant ... Diner Manager
Jackey Vinson ... Lucas
Frank McRae ... Spankey
Lee Arenberg ... Armageddon Registrar
Tobey Maguire ... Lucas' goon at video armageddon
Generally when we run a tournament or Survivor-type competition here at topfive_reviews, I do my best to review movies that somehow fit into the theme of the competition. Since they've made movies about pretty much almost every idea known to man (still waiting on the Talking Pie movie though) it's a fairly easy way to stay in the spirit of things while also reviewing movies that I might not get around to for awhile. Lately the video game movie genre has been filled with average to horrible movies that hardcore fans of the games get all Internet-snarky about. Most of these movies pretty much make me groan the second I hear their title and wonder aloud "Why would they make a movie based on THAT game?"
Back in 1989, the Internet wasn't populated by hardly anyone other than a couple people at Tech Universities making up text games based on Dugeons & Dragons and the inventor of the Internet, Al Gore. The only exposure North American video game players had to Japanese video games usually were in the pages of Nintendo Power. Back in the day, pretty much everyone else my age was all abuzz about the scenes of Super Mario Bros. 3 that were included in the new Fred Savage movie, The Wizard. SMB3 would go on to become the best-selling video game of all time and much of that was attributed to this movie, or what some people called a "90-minute commercial for Nintendo."
Since it's been probably 15 or so years since I last saw this movie, I kind of had a guilty desire to see it again. Guilty mostly because in my heart of hearts, I knew that it probably wouldn't have aged well at all. I also really wanted to see if Jenny Lewis (currently of Rilo Kiley almost-fame) was as awesome as I remembered her being, since I've had a crush on her ever since she proclaimed her greatness at Double Dragon. I wanted to hear that Lucas (Vinson) guy say that oft-quoted line one more time: "I love the Power Glove. It's so bad," with that faraway near-obsessive glint in his eyes. I prepared myself for the dumbing down of the video games for the non-video game moviegoers, doing my best to eliminate as much snark from my thoughts while still snorting derisively at the ridiculousness of the climatic Video Armageddon battle. But I also wanted to be as subjective as possible, not allowing my inner 11-year old to gush about the radicalness of making a movie about a video game that OMG I PLAYED!
I'm not even going to go into the storyline, because really it's prepostrous. The whole movie is about a road trip to get to Cal-if-orn-yaaa to exploit young Jimmy (Edwards) at the Video Game Championship tournament. Along the way you'll be exposed to many exciting and mundane products that will awaken a desire in you (buySuperMarioBrothers3) to head out to 7-11 and pick up a Slurpee, to someday go on (buySuperMarioBrothers3) the Universal Studios tour and be disappointed that no Frankenstein guy started following you around, and to intentionally (buySuperMarioBrothers3) smash up some dude's car.
The movie is adequately directed by Todd Holland (who would later go on to direct some quality episodes of Wonderfalls) and it was written by some guy named David Chisholm. I imagine the "writing" of this movie consisted of someone from Nintendo repeatedly smacking Chisholm in the face with the POWER GLOVE and suggesting other video games and products to include in the movie. The dialogue is laughable in some scenes, though the over-the-top acting of some of the participants more than make up for it. Will Seltzer in particular was quite great as the smarmy, weaselish child bounty hunter. And yes, Jenny Lewis was as awesome as I remembered her. Clearly this movie isn't for everyone, but it will always remain a semi-guilty pleasure of mine and one that will always keep me from getting too old and snarky.
3 / 5
Come on now, the movie wasn't that bad. After all, Spider-Man was in it.
