a film so unique, intoxicating and bizarre that it not only demands another viewing, but is also forgivable as a satirical comedy where the jokes eventually take the back seat.

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

I remember seeing this movie when it first was released back in 1990 or so and I was just a very young kid. I remember I did not really want to see it and my sister dragged me in to see it promising I would get to pick the next movie (which of course never happened). Anyway my parents made me go to it with her and her friend and I had no idea what the movie was about but I ended up liking it a lot. It's a pretty simple story about this boy who is really good at playing and beating video games. The boy is played by Fred Savage who did The Wonder Years and was The Mole in Austin Powers years later. He goes to a tournament for a new Nintendo game to try to beat everyone and become the ultimate video game champion.

I first saw The Wizard somewhere over Greenland in July 1990. After a long US holiday it was nice seeing a road movie to pass the long hours stuck on the plane. The movie is an utterly shameless 100-minute commercial for Nintendo products, the then imminent release of Super Mario Bros. 3 (even though 2 was never released in the US) and Universal's own Los Angeles theme park, but at the time I was just interested because of all the video games on show, though it does not speak well of youth that even in 1989 video games were still the number 1 sport.The actual plot woven into the commercial is truly heartbreaking though. Young, possibly autistic, catatonic Jimmy Woods (James Woods?) keeps wandering away from home, desperate to get to California. Half-brother Cory (Fred Savage) goes after him, attempting to pacify his desire to get to the west coast state. Cory thinks that Jimmy wants to enter a video game competition at Universal Studios but really he just wants to visit the Cabazon Dinosaurs - the last place of happy memories before the death of his twin sister, and he just wants to let her go.Really heavy-going stuff, and not a film I can enjoy watching as an adult in that regard. The film is poorly directed and features innumerable errors regarding the Nintendo products that they are promoting. How can the kids shout out the secrets of a video game that they have never played and that has only just been announced? For a commercial they sure didn't research their material very well. But it does win back some points for effective use of the original "Send me an Angel" by Real Life.Christian Slater and Beau Bridges pursue the boys as the older brother and dad, while a feisty teenage girl called Hayley helps them get to their destination on time. The travel montages and locations are all memorable and turn the journey into a nice rites-of-passage.It's become a cult classic in recent years, and will provoke even more nostalgia another 24 years down the line, but the heavy subject matter beneath the Nintendo-plugging means I can't go back again.

The problem with watching The Wizard now is the fact that it is so dated, and is no longer relevant to anybody, other than people amused by the classics, such as myself. Today's kids aren't going to want to watch this film simply because "it's old." Even I, a retro-Nintendo fan, was bored throughout most of this film.Reason being why this film was so big at the time was because kids everywhere were in love with the Nintendo Entertainment System, and wanted to see and play anything to do with it. Plus, not only was it a movie with some games referenced in it, it also had the sneak peek of Super Mario Bros. 3. I can't imagine the looks on a child's face as they saw some early footage of one of the greatest games in video game history. It's things like that juice-up the nostalgia meter, but don't do much to juice-up the likability of the film.The story is about two boys, Corey (Savage) and his brother Jimmy (Edwards), who run away from their parents after a family fights consume the house. Jimmy suffers from a serious mental condition, and remains silent for most of the film. Corey realizes that Jimmy is "a wizard" at video games. He seems pretty calm about his skills as well, and they soon meet up with Haley (Lewis), another runaway who tells them about "Video Armageddon," a big video game event that showcasing player's skill. Suddenly, they are en route to it.The Wizard's main problem is it is overly written and completely unrealistic, but I think that is what most kids will like about it. Home Alone was very over-the-top, but kids like it because the unlikely happened. Same thing happens with The Wizard. Though too many times these kids are put into serious danger, that no kid would escape. I find it incredibly hard to believe young kids aren't victim to trouble or abduction when they wander the streets aimlessly as runaways escaping kidnappers like they do it all the time.Every kid who saw this film came for the video game footage. Not the actual storyline. There are parts in the film where games are shown, saying they are on level three or something, when really, it's plain obvious to the character when they are on level. Any kid who was a huge fan of these games was most likely yelling in the theater "hey, he's not on level three," and frankly, if I was eight in 1989 I probably would've too.The film focuses too much on a senseless, congested storyline when it could be focusing on trying to construct more video game footage for the kids. If you told a child, around eight or nine years old, that this film as going to show five seconds of Super Mario Bros., they wouldn't bite. If you market the film like it centers around that game, then kids would bite. Nintendo could've banked from this a lot more had they simply gave kids what they wanted. It disappoints all around.Watching the end scene in 2011 doesn't really mean much now, because Super Mario Bros. 3 can now be bought for a few dollars off of Amazon, or at any retro-game used store. All I could think was how many kids screamed at the screen when they saw this come up so abruptly. That's all The Wizard is good for now. Memories, imagining, and nostalgia. Those three things only make for a paper-thin film.Starring: Fred Savage, Luke Edwards, Jenny Lewis, and Christian Slater. Directed by: Todd Holland.

Well, not really. My life story doesn't resemble that of the characters in any way except for our collective love of video games. That said:I watched this movie so many damn times as a kid it'll make your head spin. What can I say about this movie that you don't already know yourself? Fred Savage. Beau Bridges. Christian Slater. The chick from Rilo Kiley. Spanky.And then Jimmy brings it all home.First of all, I want to say that whatever pills the video game contest host was on, I want me some of that. Two, they should bring back the Powerglove. And three, road trip movies will never, ever die.From Double Dragon to Ninja Gaiden or the nostalgic dinosaur park in the middle of no where, this movie will always remain a classic for me."Gimme, gimme, gimme...Jimmy...Woods!!!"