The Wizard – 1989
It's more than a
game... It's the chance of a lifetime.
In the
summer of 1989 me and my brothers spent our vacation at our grandmother’s. She didn’t have cable, very many neighbors,
and the only place for us to socialize was at church which my grandmother used
as cheap babysitting. Video rental
stores were still big back then so without much else to do we played a lot of
Nintendo and she’d often rent us movies.
I remember seeing 3 movies that summer, Ghostbusters 2, The Transformers
Movie, and The Wizard, and I loved them all.
Watching this movie recently I can understand why I loved it as a
kid. In 1989 I cared about one thing and
one thing only and that was Nintendo.
Hell we even had Nintendos in the daycare my parents used to unload us
on. I think adults across the country
realized they’d get a break from their kids for a few hours if they just forked
over a hundred bucks for a Nintendo and a few games to go with it. As a kid I had no freakin clue what was going
on in “The Wizard” but the Nintendo plot drew me in enough to entertain me and
that’s all this movie was to me. Put in
the simplest kid’s terms “The Wizard” was a movie about Nintendo and kids
roughly my age playing Nintendo. Hell it
even had adults playing Nintendo which is something I had yet to
witness in real life.
As an
adult this movie makes no damn sense to me.
The plot has adult themes that most young children won’t even
understand. A lot of 80’s kid’s movies
were like that. I remember my family
taking me to see “Who Framed Roger Rabbit?” and being completely confused. “E.T.” had elements I didn’t understand(I
never understood why the government was so mean and why E.T. was dying), as did
“Ghostbusters”(adult relationships, science), and “Karate Kid”(there’s a scene
where the bullies are smoking weed). But
this entire movie was based around themes I couldn’t even begin to grasp at the
tender age of 8. What’s more confusing
is young Nintendo players from the ages of 7-12 were this movie’s target
demographic. The premise and dialogue
were far too immature for anyone over the age of 13. So why don’t we explore some of these adult
themes shall we?
Well
the movie opens with a small autistic boy walking alongside the road in the
middle of the desert. For whatever
reason he wants to go to California(when they say “go” or “going” to California
I can’t help but be reminded of that great Led Zep song). At the time I saw this movie I had never been
exposed to an autistic person and all I knew was there was something different
about this character but I didn’t know what or why. Even now I’m confused about the family
dynamic in this movie. Beau Bridges is
the father of Jimmy the autistic boy but his ex-wife who is now remarried has
custody. Bridges is also the father of
Nick(Christian Slater believe it or not) and Corey(Fred Savage), but then Corey
says this strange line, “Just because he’s our half-brother it doesn’t matter
right?” Jimmy’s mother has a small role and it’s revealed a little later that Jimmy used to have a twin sister that
died. Okay I just have to step outside
this for a second. The family drama is
so freakin annoying and hard to understand especially if you’re a child. I can’t help but think if this movie didn’t
have the Nintendo aspect as a child I would have had no interest at all in
it. In fact here is my childish
interpretation of the movie, when I was a kid all I saw was 3 kids running away
to achieve freedom from their overbearing parents and compete in a Nintendo
championship. Anyone over the age of 13
is evil because they are trying to prevent this from happening. Any time an adult shares the screen with
another adult they are arguing or fighting about something. The messages are just so mixed but at that
age I didn’t understand that parents had a legal and moral responsibility to
protect and feed their children which doubles when they have special needs.
Back on
topic Corey finds out they’re going to put Jimmy in a home. He’s mature enough to understand what this
means but not mature enough to understand that it’s the best place for his
autistic half-brother who keeps running away and putting himself in
danger. So what is his grand idea to
save Jimmy? In true child logic he kidnaps
him from the home and runs away with him.
The two end up in a bus station only to find out that the twenty bucks
Corey has isn’t enough to get them to LA.
While Corey is arguing with the clerk Jimmy plays an arcade. When Corey rejoins him he finds out that Jimmy got an exceptional high score. A girl overhears them and they make a bet, she
cashes in her ticket and she loses. I’d
hate play the gender card here but in 1989 I didn’t know a single girl who
played video games. Hustling video
games becomes a running theme in this movie and eventually how they get enough money
to get to California.
When
the kids are discovered missing Bridges and Slater go to the police where
Bridges’ ex-wife and new husband are waiting.
They introduce a character that specializes in finding lost children. From here on out I’m going to refer to this
guy as the Creepy Guy. Since no one
seems to be interested in his other son Bridges takes it upon himself to look
for the children. On his way out Creepy
Guy tells him that he doesn’t get paid if someone else finds the kids and warns
him to stay out of his way. What the
fuck?! Did he just tell the father of
two missing children that he couldn’t care less about his kids and his only
concern is getting paid?! Of all the
unnatural dialogue in this movie this has to be the absolute worst, not to
mention the most insensitive. What’s
worse is Creepy Guy continues to sabotage them for the rest of the movie. The next scene this asshole is in he’s
slashing Bridges’ tires and threatening him with a knife. His behavior continues to be abnormal as he
just sits idle in his car giving Bridges enough time to grab a shovel and bash
his car. When he does finally get the
good sense to run away he stops and yells out “I don’t appreciate this! You got no class! No class at all!” Didn’t you just flatten the tires of a worried
father searching for his two missing children?
This is just another line that is laugh out loud absurd. Just about every line this character has fits
in that category. Creepy Guy is the very
embodiment of unintentional humor. The
things he says and does make no logical sense and he’s only in this movie to
serve as an obstacle for one set of characters and an antagonist for both sets
of characters as well as pad the movie.
Likewise
other characters seem to act very inappropriately. After hustling enough to make a fat wad of
bills Haley starts counting it in the back of a truck they’re hitching in. The truckers see it and chase them sometimes
flinging these kids to the ground. They
succeed in taking their money and leave them in the middle of nowhere! A different trucker who seems to be an acquaintance
of Haley places craps bets for her. No
one seems to care that three kids are traveling by foot in rural areas miles
away from civilization. None of the
people they hitch rides from are interested in doing the logical thing by taking
three runaways to the nearest police station.
People witness Creepy Guy man handling and threatening small kids but
don’t do anything. There’s one scene
where he’s yelling at Corey and a woman intervenes not to help Corey but to
tell Creepy Guy where he can find Jimmy.
Afterwards he yells I HATE YOU right in his face and well within earshot of this woman. Three teenagers get hustled and then nearly run over and beat up 3
smaller younger children. Bridges flies
into a rage and puts his and Slater’s life in danger by repeatedly crashing his
truck into Creepy Guy’s car.
The
movie ends with a lot of ambiguity. I’m
unsure what happens to Jimmy and Haley after they win the championship. Earlier in the movie Corey makes a deal with
Haley that if Jimmy wins they’ll split the $50,000 prize money. When we find out that Haley's mother split and
she lives in an isolated trailer with her absent trucker father she tells Corey
she wants the money to buy a big house of her own. Jimmy’s step dad is an asshole and he’s
probably a lawyer too judging by the way he talks, so I doubt he’ll let Corey or
Haley have any of the prize money. Also
the kids show up at the Nintendo championship without their parents and you’d
think they’d at least need parental consent to be eligible to enter. Since they didn’t I’m sure the money would go
to one of the other three participants who did have consent. Come to think of it I don’t know what the
hell this Nintendo championship has to do with anything. The reason they’re bringing Jimmy to
California is because he wants to go and it’s not revealed until the end of the
movie why he wants to go there. At the
end of the movie we find out the lunch box Jimmy carries with him everywhere
has a few personal items of his dead sister.
When she was alive the family took a vacation to a Dino Park and he
wants to inter her possessions there to lay her to rest. None of this has anything to do with Nintendo
or money. After Jimmy places the lunch
box in the Dino Park his mother tells Bridges that they’ll talk when they get
home. I have absolutely no idea what
that means. I think it’s either meant to
imply that they’re getting back together or that she’s giving him custody of
Jimmy. The latter makes more sense
because the movie closes on Bridges’ pickup with Jimmy, Haley, and Corey in the
bed. I kinda wonder if this means they’re
adopting Haley too. Regardless this
movie could have done without a lot of the drama because kids don’t care or
understand much of it. It makes me
wonder why this couldn’t just be a fun movie about kids playing in a Nintendo tournament.
Aside from the Nintendo aspects,(the company has released
numerous systems since this movie’s release, switched from cartridges to minidiscs
to full sized discs, and the current Gameboy is light years ahead what the NES
could do in 1989. Funny how far gaming
has come in just 23 years isn’t it?) The New Kids on the Block can be heard
whenever the group is in diners(but only when they are in diners) making this
movie horribly dated. Just like "Mac and
Me" the product placement here isn’t at all subtle. It’s like they had a quota to fill with
Nintendo and they had to have so many scenes featuring people playing it. My favorite scenes are the ones where Bridges
and Slater are playing Nintendo in their hotel rooms or at garages getting
their pickup fixed. Slater’s brothers
are missing but it was a huge priority for him to fix his brother’s broken
Nintendo so he didn’t get bored. In one
scene Slater wakes up only to find his dad has been playing Teenage Mutant
Ninja Turtles all night. They could have
been looking for the kids but screw that I just gotta beat this game. “The Wizard” also has some of the worst one
liners I’ve heard since the last time I saw “Cool as Ice” and Vanilla Ice
mutters this classic “Words of wisdom, drop that zero and get with the hero”. Here is just a sample of my favorite dialogue
from this movie.
“Yeah well uhh, just
keep your power gloves off her, pal.”
“Hey, it's the wizard!
I hope you don't get nervous like last time. We wouldn't want you to...’wiz’ on
someone!”
To get away from the creepy guy in the casino Haley screams
out “He touched my breast” forget the
fact that I had no idea what a breast was at that age Creepy guy later says, “I touched her breast! She doesn’t have any breasts!” I could only watch as my mouth fell open in
shock and awe. What a fucked up line.
Bateman, Bridges’ ex-wife’s new husband says this incredibly
insensitive dialogue right after he says the only sensible thing any character
in this movie says:
Bateman: “You are
missing the point. I have an obligation
to the welfare of this child. I have to
see that he is returned here for the kind of treatment he needs.”(he introduces
a professional that finds lost children to find Jimmy).
Bridges: “What about
Corey?”
Batman: “Corey wants
to run away doesn’t he? Even if we
brought him back would it do any good?”
I couldn’t help from laughing out loud when I heard
this. How can you be good and then evil
in the same breath?
As odd as it sounds this reminds a lot of another movie where a man absconds with his autistic brother in order to exploit him to gain money. If you haven't got it yet I'm clearly talking about "Rain Man".
The only difference is that “Rain Man” is a way better movie.
“The Wizard” is bad but it serves as a
time capsule of late 80’s pop and gaming culture and this is what saves it. Excuse me, the movie is stupid but not
irredeemable just like the aforementioned “Cool as Ice” and “Mac and Me”. They’re bad and cheesy but still enjoyable,
mostly for how shameless and ill-conceived they are. 50/100
