Review of The Wizard (1989) by Danielle S — 18 Jul 2007

Somewhere along the line, someone realized that it's nigh impossible to make a good movie based on a video game. So instead, they made a movie about the entire Nintendo Entertainment System, thereby capturing all the feel-good nostalgia associated with its hundreds of titles, but without crippling handicaps. Fred Savage explodes onto the screen as a curly-haired dork with highly articulate eyebrows. He's caught between his divorced parents in a custody battle over his autistic, obsessive-compulsive, equinophobic, dyslexic, colorblind kid brother Jimmy ( Luke Edwards). Beyond that, THE WIZARD carries deeper meanings that children can pick up on. Jimmy, the autistic video game prodigy, demonstrates that all of us, regardless of our limitations, possess marvelous gifts. The protagonists' path is beset by peril on all sides.

There are teenage white trash hoodlums who exist solely for the purpose of stealing Jimmy's hat and saying lines like "What is this kid, some sort of cyborg?" There are fat salesmen who talk like Foghorn Leghorn, unable to believe that a scrawny kid is better than they are at Contra.

And don't get me started on the creepy bald guy hired by Fred's mom to bring the kids back home, dead or alive. His name is Putnam and repeatedly touches Haley's breasts. Meanwhile, Beau Bridges plays Nintendo like my dad, yanking the controller this way and that. Every time Beau Bridges and Christian Slater run into Putnam, a redneck banjo riff kicks in and the whole movie starts to sound like a Menard's commercial while the adversaries engage in automobile/ gardening tool combat. highly recommend it regardless of your age or family status.