The Wizard
If you’re like me you grew up in the era where Nintendo ruled the world. To some of us it still does. For a couple of lucky actors the epitome of this world was appearing in the film the wizard. Think about it, you’re a kid and you get to be in a movie about playing Nintendo games!! It’s like winning the fucking lottery and getting a handie from your English teacher rolled into one wonderful package.
Fred Savage plays Sam Woods a kid who really just wants to see his brother Jimmy happy. What would make Jimmy happy most is going to California. Why? They'd rather not tell you, I guess they wanted to build anticipation? Along the way Sam and Jimmy get mixed up with a redhead dame named Haley. Haley is the precocious type and immediately challenges the boys to a game of Double Dragon, Jimmy destroys her and they realize right then and there that he’s “a wizard”. I have a feeling if it were today he’s be called an “idiot savant” and probably be heavily medicated.
Anyone this good at Double Dragon should be medicated
As it turns out Jimmy is AMAZING at video games, all of them. The three decide to use this skill to wager their way across the USA to LA where they discover that in three days there’s going to be a video game championship. How fucking convenient, right? Along the way they meet all sorts of crazy characters, most notably a little shit named Lucas who turns the audience on to the power glove “I love the power glove, it’s so bad”. Lucas also owns all 97 Nintendo games (pretty telling about when this came out since there were over 800 games for the system when it stopped producing them) this tidbit is supposed to impress us. It probably did impress me back when I was younger (oh who am I kidding, it DID impress me). Lucas, however, is a total douchebag. Basically if the same character had been made today, Mike “The Situation” would play him.
"It's so bad" to date I'm not sure if he was using the common vernacular or just stating the fact that it's a piece of SHIT! The angry video game nerd does a video about the power glove, go watch it!
What I failed to mention is that to get to California Sam had to steal Jimmy from a psychiatric facility where he was being held. The facility hires a guy to chase after them, but Sam’s father and brother decide to give chase themselves so it becomes a three-way race. A race for Sam and Jimmy to get to L.A. and a race between the bounty hunter and the father and brother (played by Beau Bridges and Christian Slater respectively) to get to the kids first. In the end all of that doesn’t matter because everyone winds up in L.A. at the same time. I won’t ruin the surprise ending, but let’s just say a NEW GAME is revealed!!
unbeknownst to Beau, he'll be rocking the Nintendo before the movie is over
The Wizard is so much fun it’s almost unbearable and if there’s any movie that represents the 80’s perfectly, its The Wizard. If you haven’t seen it, GO AND WATCH IT NOW.
5 out of 5
Doing my Picture research this morning I discovered this! A drinking game based on The Wizard! thanks to thelazydork.com for either creating that or posting it, either way it combines two of my favorite things!
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