Videogame Cinema: The Wizard

So far on Videogame Cinema we’ve only looked at cinematic adaptations of videogames. For good reason since most videogame movies are adaptations, but that’s not all there is to them. There are plenty of films out there that are based around the idea videogames rather than try to adapt a specific title to the big screen.

And now that I have looked at most of the early videogame adaptations, I think it’s time we expand our horizons in this segment and talk about one of the earliest videogame movies of all time, The Wizard.

Released in 1989, The Wizard was made largely as an advertising vehicle. See, Nintendo had released Super Mario Bros 3 in Japan in 1988 to great critical and financial success, but due to a combination of a chip shortage and Nintendo reworking Doki Doki Panic as the western version of Mario 2 they had to delay the release date of Mario 3 for over a year.

This presented an opportunity for Nintendo to up the marketing for the game, as well as explore new opportunities to put their IPs in other media. Around the same time, they got a call from Tom Pollock of Universal Studios that would allow them to do both. Pollock had seen the success of the Nintendo Entertainment System and had thought about making a movie based around Nintendo games.

Nintendo saw this as an opportunity to advertise Mario 3 in a big way, and Universal also saw it as a vehicle to promote their brand-new Universal Studios Theme Park. And yes, many years later Nintendo and Universal would team up again to make a Nintendo theme park in Universal Studios. Life is circular, everything comes back around eventually.

The funniest thing about the whole thing is that these two companies would choose to work together at all considering that only six years prior Universal had attempted to sue Nintendo over Donkey Kong. I guess being blown out in court humbles even giants.

Regardless of their history, these two titans of entertainment were looking to work together to make a movie together. All to market a videogame to ten-year-olds. It was like an unholy fusion of cinema and commercialism. You love to see it.

Although to the filmmaker’s credit they didn’t treat it as a commercial. Director Todd Holland took the movie seriously and even rewrote parts of the movie to add more emotional depth. In fact, according to a 2008 Wizard reunion and a 2014 interview with NintendoLife, Hollands original cut was over two and a half hours long and had a larger focus on the drama and character backstories.

While I appreciate the effort and enthusiasm I must ask, are you out of your goddamned mind? Two and a half hours? For a kid’s movie?! The little bastards would be bored out of their minds from something like that. That’s a length you use for an epic, not a movie aimed at ten-year-olds hopped up on Nintendo Cereal System. Yes, that was actually a thing in the eighties, Nintendo was everywhere back then.

Luckily the final cut was trimmed to a little over an hour and a half. A lot of the deleted stuff is preserved on the Blu-ray release if you’re interested, although a director’s cut has yet to be made available. I hope it does though because I am curious to see how a two and a half hour kids movie plays out.

Despite Hollands best efforts the film was still lambasted by critics as being, well, little more than a Nintendo commercial. Film critic Roger Ebert even called it “a cynical exploitation film with a lot of commercial plugs”. Exploitation film? That’s a bit extreme isn’t it. What is there a Princess Peach sex scene or something.

Critics were not kind to The Wizard, but it wasn’t made for them. It was made for young Nintendo fans and many of those that grew up with the movie loved it. It’s become a cult classic among gamers of the 80’s with some saying that critics were too harsh on it and that it does have an actual emotional core to it that resonates with them.

Mixed reactions you could say. Going into this is interesting because I’m coming at it with no nostalgic bias. I didn’t grow with this movie since it was released before I was born and I wasn’t really a Nintendo fan until I was ten and I got my GameCube. I hadn’t heard about it until I saw it mentioned in a lot of old gaming discourse in the early internet days.

I remember seeing the old Angry Video Game Nerd and Nostalgia Critic episodes and I enjoyed those, I dare say it’s some of their best work, but I’ve never sat down and watched the film itself. The only thing I knew going in was that it was criticised as being nothing more than an ad for Nintendo.

Which is exactly what this ended up being. The Wizard really is just one giant Nintendo commercial and there’s no getting around that fact. The movie is filled to the brim with various Nintendo games and accessories, and the whole movie is centred around a massive Nintendo tournament. With the reveal of Super Mario Bros 3 being the big highlight of the movie. It couldn’t be anymore of a commercial is it tried and believe me it tries hard.

To the films credit though, the actual story is not driven by Nintendo products. It’s driven largely by character drama. The story follows a kid named Jimmy who is suffering from PTSD after his twin sister drowned two years prior to the start of the movie.

He constantly wanders off and tries to get to California. He never explains why, all he does is mutter the word California and no one can get him to open up. Although his reasoning is irrelevant since simply wanting to go to California is enough evidence that you’re messed in the head.

Anyway, his mom and stepdad don’t know what to do with him, so they decide to institutionalise him. His older half brother Corey doesn’t like this, and sick of dealing with his own familial issues at home, decides to bust him out and take him to California to see if that will help him. Sure, take the mentally distressed kid away from professionals that can help him and take him on the road with no adult supervision. That won’t end badly.

God, don’t you just want to go out and buy a Game Boy after reading that. You can probably tell one of the major problems with the movie already. It attempts to be a legit family movie, with character development and dealing with actual issues, but all of it feels completely at odds with what the movie is.

The movie deals with heavy subjects like trauma and broken homes, but it’s also trying to sell you a Power Glove at the same time. Neither side meshes well at all. I don’t want to buy a Nintendo after seeing a kid go through mental trauma, that just makes me sad.

You get major whiplash when watching it because they’ll spend ten minutes doing nothing but show off Nintendo products, and then they’ll spend ten minutes on the family drama stuff. The first sixteen minutes are nothing but that. It takes a tenth of the run time to get our first scene of any Nintendo products, and when it does show up it feels like you entered a completely different movie.

Beyond the content, the tone is wildly inconsistent too. One moment is a typical goofy kids’ adventure movie, and the next moment it becomes a serious drama dealing with loss and PTSD. It’s like you’re watching Spy Kids one minute and Ordinary People the next. Pick a lane movie.

By this point your probably wondering what Nintendo even has to do with any of this. Well, while they’re on the road, Corey discovers that Jimmy is super good at Nintendo games. He’s a natural at all of them, a wizard you could say. Or at least they say he is, because you wouldn’t get that idea from watching him pretend to play them.

This is one of those movies where the actors clearly are not playing the games. Rerez did an entire video breaking it down if you want the details, but a mere casual glance is enough to confer that fact. Even Roger Ebert who never played a game in his life could tell that. Film fans probably wouldn’t care, but if you’re a gamer it’s outright hilarious how much they’re faking it. Half the time the frigging consoles aren’t even turned on. Maybe they were banking on people not noticing. It isn’t like consoles have lights to let you know it’s turned on or anything, oh wait.

The scene that killed me was early in the movie where they fawn over Jimmy making a jump in Ninja Gaiden, despite it only being the first level. They make it like he’s a god at the game when he’s only on the goddamn tutorial stage. They even call it his second run, meaning he died on the first stage. This kid is a videogame savant? Bullshit he is.

Even the way the dialogue is written is weird. The way they talk makes it clear the writer knew nothing about videogames. Which he didn’t, he’s admitted in interviews that he didn’t know a goddamn thing. It’s really embarrassing if you’re a game because it’s so easy to spot too

Normally this wouldn’t be a big issue. They’re trying to make a movie and not every actor is skilled at videogames enough to make for interesting footage. A lot of game journalists can’t do that right. There are plenty of examples of movies and tv shows where actors fake playing a videogame, and even if it’s embarrassingly obvious it’s fine because it’s not a major factor. But people playing video games is a main factor in this movie and that makes it much harder to overlook.

They’re constantly playing games in the movie and they’re constantly making basic mistakes. The console isn’t turned on, they say a character didn’t take a hit when they clearly did, they aren’t playing the game the characters say they’re playing, they get point totals that are impossible, every scene of someone playing a game has some kind of major fuck up. For a game about videogames aimed at gamers, the gameplay footage shown is laughable.

Anyway, Jimmy’s super impressive and totally real videogame skills impress a young girl the brothers run into named Haley who tells them about a video game competition taking place in Universal Studios. She tags along because the movie needs a female lead, and to get a cut of the prize money, I guess.

Haley is just here because it’s a kid’s movie and they need a token girl to round out the cast. They give her a backstory of her dad being a trucker and always being on the road so she’s constantly wandering around herself? I don’t know it doesn’t make too much sense. I thought the movie was setting up the guy had abandoned her and that’s why she was doing it, but no.

Her Dad and her are cool, they’re just poor because her mom left them after gambling away all the money. So her whole being on the road by herself is never explained. She’s just on the road for whatever reason. I don’t think this movie realises how dangerous that really is. I mean the kids get robbed twice, but that’s the worst that happens to them and they bounce back almost right away. This movie is so naively innocent it makes me concerned for its wellbeing.

Anyway, Haley is in this for the money as most women are, but the boys are in going for a different reason. See, they think that if Jimmy wins the competition, it will prove that he doesn’t need to be put into a home. Because being talented at videogames proves that you aren’t crazy.

Flawless reasoning I’m sure you’ll agree. I mean you could argue that none of that proves that Jimmy doesn’t suffer from PTSD and this plot point is functionally retarded, but I don’t think you understand the power of Nintendo games. They can cure the sick don’t you know.

Ok, in all seriousness, this is very stupid. In no reality would this plan make any sense. Jimmy is still clearly suffering from some kind of trauma. Although the exact severity of it is never really elaborated on and is very inconsistent. Most of the movie he can only say California, but in other scenes he’s able to talk completely normal.

It’s very obvious they have no idea on how to depict childhood trauma. They seem to have a habit of dealing with topics they know nothing about so that does track. Although while I was thinking it through and going back over the movie it made me wonder something, was Jimmy originally meant to be autistic.

That’s how he came across in the movie anyway. I mean, they make a big deal of him obsessively playing with building blocks when he’s upset and he’s also a savant at games, it’s not that hard to make the connection. I know I’m playing into stereotypes, but it’s a Hollywood movie from the 80’s, if it was dealing with a mental handicap they would play into those stereotypes. Hollywood isn’t the best at depicting this stuff even now. You ever see The Predator? Don’t, that movie sucked.

It honestly does feels like he was written to be that way. my theory is that he was, but they changed it to be PTSD at some point. Although it’s more likely that it accidently comes across that way because the writers don’t know how to depict what actual child trauma looks like.

I’m getting way off topic though. Point is the boys plan is very dumb. It doesn’t disprove Jimmy’s mental distress; all it does prove is he’s good at gaming. Both things can be true at the same time. So naturally the plan works in the end because this movie is promoting Nintendo products and Nintendo products are magic. I mean I had PTSD when my dog died, but one round of Super Mario Bros, gone in an instant.

The bulk of The Wizard is basically a road trip movie. The kids go from arcade to arcade, they hustle people out of money to get supplies, hitch rides where they can, and learn the power of friendship along the way. All that good wholesome 80’s movie crap.

While all that’s going on, Corey and Jimmy’s dad Sam and older brother Nick are looking for them to bring them home, competing with a bounty hunter named Putnam who was hired by Jimmy’s mom to bring him home, but not Corey because Jimmy’s stepdad is a dick.

This entire sub-plot doesn’t really go anywhere. They try to have bonding moments between father and son who are shown to be at odds in the beginning, but it isn’t developed all that much beyond them both getting more into Nintendo games. Because Nintendo games bring families together according to this movie.

For a movie about families reconnecting, it doesn’t do a good job of showing the characters having a connection. Nobody has a conversation in this movie. The only thing they do talk about is what happened to Jimmy and even then, they talk about him but never to him. Nobody actually has a chat about what they’re going through or how what happened to Jimmy affected them. It’s all told in exposition, which makes the whole theme of trauma feel wasted and undercooked.

This movie tries to bite way more than it can chew. It’s not equipped to deal with any of the heavy themes it wrestles with, so they wind up falling flat and half of them don’t even get a proper resolution. It’s hard to do that when you’re trying to sell people on Simon’s Quest, which believe me is not an easy task on its own.

Then there’s Putnam who is a complete waste of a villain. He doesn’t catch up to the kids until about an hour into the movie and he’s thwarted almost immediately. I’m not kidding, he captures Jimmy twice and then the kids stop him right away. Team Rocket wasn’t foiled as fast as this guy.

The whole rivalry with him and Sam makes no sense either. Putnam is an asshole who just wants the money, but he’s still going to bring Jimmy home safe and sound. He’s not bringing Corey back, but that’s why Sam and Nick are going too. Why don’t they team up? Putnam gets Jimmy and Sam gets Corey, then they both win. It’s not like Sam is going to steal Jimmy, he just wants the kids home safe. Isn’t that the whole reason these two are doing this.

This whole rivalry is just there largely as comedic relief. It feels like a waste of screen time that could have been spent developing these characters. It also makes it hard to take Putnam serious when he acts like a clown throughout most of the movie, not that you could anyway given how incompetent he is.

The sad part is that the comedy itself is lamer than a church choir. It’s not the worst I’ve seen. I wasn’t groaning or cringing at any of the jokes or anything, and I got a laugh out of it on occasion, it’s just typical lame kids movie humour. You know the humour that will keep kids engaged but won’t annoy the parents too much. It’s not irritating or funny enough to be memorable. It’s just there begging you to give a shit.

If you haven’t gathered, The Wizard is not a very good movie. It’s tonally inconsistent, and it doesn’t handle its themes with the weight they need. Even the pacing feels off. After an hour I thought we were reaching the climax, but then it went on for another forty minutes. You can also tell this movie was much longer too because it does feel like a lot of things got cut out and scenes ending abruptly happens far too often.

I appreciate them trying to make it a legit movie, but it just doesn’t work. And a big reason it doesn’t work is because, sadly, it really is just a giant ad for Nintendo. No amount of family drama you throw in can obfuscate the fact that this is the biggest ode to commercialism put to film.

This is best exemplified by the character Lucas. Lucas is Jimmy’s rival gamer who is super cool. He owns all the Nintendo games, and he wears a leather jacket and shades and he’s got a posse of friends who worship the ground he walks on, and he fucks girls all the time, which isn’t in the movie, but I bet he does it off screen because he’s so kewl.

Lucas is pretty much every cool character in every commercial ever. He’s the guy you could be if you bought all the Nintendo games. First you get the Nintendo games, then you get the power, then you get the women.

They try so hard to make cool that he comes across as a tool, but he’s so much of a tool that he loops back around to being cool again. It’s fucking amazing. This dude is an advertiser’s wet dream, and they are not shy about showing it.

That was the first scene featuring Lucas, well second technically but whatever, and just look at it. It’s not a scene in a movie it’s a fucking ad break. You might as well put the “now you’re playing with power” tagline at the end of it. And you got to love how they end with the line it’s so bad too. Like even they knew the Power Glove was a worthless piece of shit that barely worked so they threw that line in to avoid getting sued for false advertisement.

This scene is the embodiment of the movie. There’s a reason why it’s brought up so much in reference to it. Because when The Wizard becomes an ad, it goes full ad. It’s so blatant in what it’s doing, trying to sell you on this shit so hard it’s difficult to not admire the hussle.

You know what the kicker is though, that Power Glove scene comes out of nowhere. There is no build up to it at all, Lucas shows up and then just decides to break it out to show it off. The movie literally stops dead in it’s tracks to advertise the Power Glove.

What I find funny is that Jimmy just runs off after seeing it and this considered his loss moment in the movie. Like he was so intimidated by Lucas’ mad Power Glove skills that he just ran away. Not that I blame him, I’d run from the Power Glove too, that thing sucked balls and dick simultaneously.

This whole scene is hilarious and by far one of the more entertaining parts of the movie. That’s the strange thing about The Wizard, while it’s easy criticise the movie as a giant ad, it’s at its best when it’s being an ad. When it tries to be a legit movie it falls apart, but when it tries to sell you Nintendo stuff it’s actually kind of fun.

This movie is like watching old ads. They exist in their own little bubble where the products are the saviour of the day. The cynical amongst us would call them shallow and a byproduct of an overly capitalistic society, but those people are twats that never have any fun.

There is an artistry to advertisements. It takes a lot of creativity and hard work to make an ad that can imprint on people to make them want to buy something. That’s why a lot of the good ones stick around so much and are still remembered to this day. I still love that old Cadbury Gorilla a despite it having nothing to do with chocolate. Because it’s so weirdly captivating that you can’t forget it.

The Wizard is almost like this, but it isn’t really trying to be an ad. Remember, the director said that he didn’t want to make it an ad. He just wanted to make a movie. Even the Rerez video I brought up makes an argument the movie isn’t an ad. So… is it really an ad?

Oh hell yeah. You saw that Power Glove scene earlier, this movie was clearly made as an ad. Then there’s the ending which was basically one massive trailer for Super Mario Bros 3. Which, need I remind you, was the entire reason this film was made. These two scenes alone prove how much of a commercial this is.

But that’s only two scenes that count for about six minutes of the movies run time. I guess you could count the Double Dragon scene earlier in the film but that game had been out for a while by that point, so it barely counts.  

So, The Wizard is an ad, without really being an ad. The most entertaining part is when it is being an ad, but that’s a small part of the film. The rest of the time it’s just a typical road trip movie and that’s when it’s at its worst. The story makes no sense and the characters are idiots. It’s hard to get invested in it because nothing is believable.

I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I wish it was more of an advertisement. Because ironically it feels more legitimate as an ad than it does as a movie. Sorry Roger Ebert but this isn’t exploitative at all. I wish it was because at least then I’d actually be entertained by it.

The movie culminates in the big gaming tournament, Video Armageddon. Which is a cool name I can’t lie. It takes place in Universal Studios, the other big product advertised in this movie. It kind of got shafted though since you barely see any of if it. There are actually more showings of Vision brand clothing then there is of Universal Studios.

For the big product Universal is trying to hype up you’d think they show it off more. They only show off one ride and it’s the tram tour. What, no Back to the Future Ride? Oh wait that wasn’t built when this movie came out. Well, what about Jaws? Nope, that also wasn’t built yet. Ok what about E.T. Adventure, the beloved staple that’s been there for years, you get the idea it wasn’t built yet either.

Ok, what did Universal Studios have back then. Let’s see they had the studio tour, a petting zoo, and a bunch of live shows. Looks like it was just a film studio with tours and not an actual theme park. Wow, Universal Studios sucked. No wonder the tour is the only thing shown off, it was the only thing worth a damn. You do get to see that old King Kong animatronic though. That’s neat until you realise it isn’t there anymore and just get depressed.

This is one of the flaws of old ads. A lot of them are advertising things that no longer exist. They’re either discontinued or they’re so different now to what they were that they might as well be something new entirely. In The Wizard’s case it’s both. Universal Studios is vastly different to how it was in the 80’s, and you can’t buy any of the Nintendo products shown anymore outside the second-hand market or retro collections. Who cares at this point.

Even the big event the movie is built around, the reveal of Super Mario Bros 3, loses its impact when you realise the games been out for 25 years. I will say that the reveal is done well. The build up is good, it’s very exciting, it shows off a lot of the game including the secret warp whistle in world one that Jimmy somehow knows exists despite only just now learning the game existed. In fact, there’s a lot of things characters know about despite it being brand new and not having the manual. This movie is lies. It’s all lies!

But whatever, if I was a kid in the eighties, it would probably be great. It’s the new Mario game and it looks awesome, but I’m not a kid anymore and now I can just play the game whenever I want. I just played it a few weeks ago in fact. There’s just not much to get hyped about anymore.

I’ve ragged on this movie a lot and for good reason. It’s not very good and is very easy to make fun of, but to be brutally honest the movie isn’t that bad. It’s more boringly bland than it is offensively awful, and there are legit good about it, mainly thanks to the cast.

The acting is surprisingly great. Even if I think the story works that well the actors do at least sell the material well. Even the child actors are pretty good in this, which isn’t something you can say for a lot of movies. It helps that the movie got big name stars like Fred Savage, Beau Bridges and Christian Slater. Those are all professionals who always try their best even if the script isn’t the best.

The other actors all do similarly, except the host of Video Armageddon who chews the scenery so much I’m surprised there’s any left. Then again, he is playing a children’s performer and those are usually just as over the top, so he is on brand at least.

Plus, as cynical as this being one long commercial is, it’s far too innocent to hate on it. Honestly, I can see why this movie would resonate with young Nintendo fans at the time. I remember being a kid and being excited when I saw a game I knew about being played in a movie or tv show, and this movie is nothing but that. And even if it is just one big commercial, there was an attempt to try to have a story to go along with it. There was at least some emotion to it, especially the ending which I will admit was very well done.

I don’t think any of it works, but I’m also viewing this as a 33-year-old well after the film came out. If I grew up with it, I probably would have loved it. I remember growing up Space Jam which was basically the same thing, and I loved that despite it also not being very good.

I can see why this movie has a cult following, but I can’t say I liked it. Still, I do think that, like Space Jam, it is worth watching as a time capsule. This is a movie that so perfectly embodies the sheer influence that Nintendo had that it’s worth watching for that reason alone. Well, this and Ghostbusters 2, which is a much better movie.

So you know what, you’re ok The Wizard. You may be dumb as hell but you’re a likable enough flick. It’s hard to be angry at something this innocent. Especially since it a very fun movie to make fun of. Like an old ad you rewatch over and over there is a certain charm to it that makes it hard to hate.

The Wizard wasn’t a critical success, but it was a modest financial hit, and Super Mario Bros 3 wound up being a major success, so it accomplished its goal. Nintendo and Universal themselves would go on to have a fruitful partnership with other movies and theme parks, but it took a while for that to happen.

The cast and crew also went on to bigger and better things. Todd Holland wound up being a very prolific tv director working on shows like Malcolm in the Middle, Fred Savage, Beau Bridges and Christian Slater continued their acting careers to decent success, Jenny Lewis who played Haley became a successful indie rockstar, and Luke Edwards who played Jimmy wound up in a film called A Beginners Guide to Snuff. He did other things, but that was too funny not to end on.

So, it all worked out in the end. Kind of nice to review a movie like this. No behind the scenes shenanigans, film did ok and is well liked by fans. It was refreshing covering something this wholesome for a change. That was fun.

Next time I’m going back to fighting game movies with DOA: Dead or Alive. I’ve already reviewed the games, might as well cover that too. I mean it has hot chicks in it, so it already looks accurate. Maybe this will be decent. Yeah, not even going to hold out hope for that.