Wizards

1977

Action / Adventure / Animation / Fantasy / Sci-Fi

39
Rotten Tomatoes Critics - Certified Fresh 67% · 27 reviews
Rotten Tomatoes Audience - Upright 69% · 5K ratings
IMDb Rating 6.3/10 10 13818 13.8K

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Plot summary

After the death of his mother, the evil mutant wizard Blackwolf discovers some long-lost military technologies. Full of ego and ambition, Blackwolf claims his mother's throne, assembles an army and sets out to brainwash and conquer Earth. Meanwhile, Blackwolf's gentle twin brother, the bearded and sage Avatar, calls upon his own magical abilities to foil Blackwolf's plans for world domination -- even if it means destroying his own flesh and blood.

Director

Top cast

Mark Hamill as Sean
David Proval as Peace
Ralph Bakshi as Fritz / Storm Trooper
Adolf Hitler as Himself
720p.BLU 1080p.BLU
685.97 MB
1280*694
English 2.0
NR
23.976 fps
1 hr 20 min
Seeds 14
1.24 GB
1920*1040
English 2.0
NR
23.976 fps
1 hr 20 min
Seeds 100+

Movie Reviews

Reviewed by Vartiainen 7 / 10

Where to even start...

Ralph Bakshi, the man you might know best as the director of that animated The Lord of the Rings film, has in fact had a long and illustrious career as an animator of the weird and bizarre. His films are rarely all that politically correct, kid-friendly or even sane. So, what if he decided to direct a family-oriented fantasy epic?Well... it would morph into an allegory about the founding of the nation of Israel, the use of propaganda in the Nazi war machine and the struggle between the forces of natural world and the industrial revolution. Nazi flags and swastikas would feature prominently, the main protagonist would be a drug abusing garden gnome lookalike, with a love interest so skimpily dressed that it would not even fly in most strip clubs, and would feature enough gore, horror imagery and acid trip sequences to satisfy even the legendary Caligula.You know, for kids!So yeah, the film certainly didn't hit its once intended mark, but when you put that aside, the film itself is actually quite a lot of fun. Sure, it goes bat guano insane with remarkable frequency, makes absolutely no sense whatsoever, is pretty inconsistent when it comes to the quality of animation, contains numerous plot holes and errors, and is all around just a blatant mess. But what a glorious mess it is! This is pure let your jaw hang loose and just take it in kind of experience. The film makers were clearly taking something while animating and you can get the last remaining whiffs of that from this film. Is it for everyone? Absolutely not! It's offensive, insane and unhinged. But, if that sounds like fun to you, you're in for a ride. My advice: bring booze.
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Reviewed by xamtaro 5 / 10

Not the "lost gem" i was hoping for

One thing i'll say for Ralph Bakshi's cult classic "Wizards": Its got brains. The whole political allegory coupled with a cautionary tale about fascism, propaganda and the amorality of technology really worked here. Rarely do you get this sort of thing in animated movies back in the 70s. The fact that it is coupled with an overall "fairy tale-ish" look that seems more at home among those cheap "ages 3 to 8" cartoons makes the viewing experience a very unique one.

It really is too bad that so much time and effort went into developing the whole underlying political themes that nothing much else went into the aspects of the film that would matter to most people, aka the dialog and the animation itself.

Though the story is simple enough to follow, the characters come across as just plain boring thanks to, IMO, horribly written lines and sub-par acting. Aside from Blackwolf the evil wizard and his good brother wizard Avatar, the rest of the characters sound like they are reading off a bedtime storybook and not engaging in dialog. Emoting comes in two extremes; either the actors ham up their parts to the point of annoyance, or there is hardly a hint of emotion behind the voices. Dialogue style also seems to inconsistently switch between an archaic "Shakespeare play" style (common in most fairy tale animated movies) and a typical "everyman" speaking style (how me and my neighbor would talk), sometimes within the same scene and by the same character.

I found it really difficult to get emotionally involved in the show. All of them have a stylized and even marginally grotesque look to them. Even the "good guys" like the elves have yellow eyes and sharp teeth; and the sub-standard animation did not help either. The animation is about as bad a cheap Flintstones holiday special with numerous animation short cuts like looping motion, re-used stock footage and out of sync sound effects. A good deal of rotoscoping was thrown in and I usually have no problems with that, Except in this case, the rotoscoped images were not "drawn over". There was no attempt to make the rotoscoped images blend with the style of the animation which led to a very disjointed feel during the battle scenes. The only time this jarring clash of animation styles actually worked was during the final climatic battle where the surreal images and the hauntingly dark rotoscoped footage effectively conveyed the hectic confusion of a real battlefield.(though i question the choice of retro jazzy background music)

To be honest, I found myself rooting most for Blackwolf's green gas-masked soldiers. ("THEY KILLED FRITZ!!"). Their little moments in the film really managed to get a chuckle out of me; they had a certain loony toons-like charm about them.

With a larger budget and a more experienced production team, Wizards could have been an avant garde work of art that entertains as well as conveys a message. What I discovered was an averagely animated film that does convey a message but falls short in the "entertainment" aspect. A couple of witty one liners here and there and some lush painted backgrounds is not enough to save this film from its numerous flaws.

By today's standards, Wizards will hardly be able to garner a mainstream following, nor would it impress the younger viewers anytime soon. It pains me to say this, but Wizards may forever remain as merely a cult classic curiosity of the 70s.

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