Too much of everything

Fantastic!

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Ralph Bakshi is one of those animators I never grew to like. His films are adult, but not necessarily mature. Some find social commentary in his work - I just find him raunchy for the sake of edge.Wizards is one of his tamer works (It was released as a PG film). Is it a parody of high fantasy tales? Is it a violent, sexy take of the genre? Kinda both, kinda neither. Wizards is surprisingly uninteresting, plain and average. If it weren't for some adult themes, it would be forgettable, only remembered as a childhood classic by the middle aged. The characters are stock, and the plot offers little innovation. Bakshi states its about technology, and the plight of the Jewish people. Those were the last things on my mind during this movie.Yeah, people get shot. There are fairies in skimpy clothing. But outside a scene here and there, the plot itself is borderline family friendly. Its actually not adult enough, not so outrageous to have a guilty fun time. And fantasy fans won't have much to take away from it, besides the odd point of Nazi propaganda used to as mind control. Its a dumb plot device - those tapes mean nothing without the context of the culture and time.It does get credit for doing what few films do. There aren't many adult animated films in the west, especially in fantasy. The animation's quality is alright, considering the budget and the time. The use of rotoscope is pretty bad in a few scenes.Some thought the ending was clever. Let's just say I didn't. >:I If you adore fantasy and animation, you could watch this. If not, I wouldn't recommend it.

I have come across who like this movie and some that don't so much, sometimes downright hate it even. As for me, I don't love or dislike Wizards. It is certainly an interesting movie, and is certainly better than Cool World, but as far as Bakshi's movies go I do much prefer Heavy Traffic and American Pop. Wizards' flaws have been covered a number of times in previous reviews, but I do share my agreement with some that have been brought up. The dialogue I don't think has been a general strength in Bakshi's movies but I did find it very corny here. The soundtrack also felt a little cheesy and perhaps too 70s, and the pacing is awkward, often feeling sluggish. I had mixed feelings on the story, it was a great idea and while simple was generally interesting and engaged me once I got over its strangeness. But I did have issues with the narration; not since Don Bluth's Rock a Doodle have I seen an animated movie with such an (I feel) unnecessary overuse of narration. However, the film does look wonderful, the characters do look too cartoony but I liked their rough-around-the-edges charm and the backgrounds and colours are stylish and beautiful. The characters while on the stereotypical side are at least likable and engaging, I did find myself rooting for Avatar. The voice acting is solid on the whole. Overall, decent film and underrated but too flawed for me to consider it a masterpiece. 6/10 Bethany Cox

"Wizards", is an animated 1977 movie about a wizard and his friends going on a quest to stop his brother from taking over the world. The story is pretty interesting and has a couple World War II references in the movie, like propaganda and the Holocaust.The animation and the visuals were great and has some interesting character designs.But the problem's I have with this film is that it has a big lack of character development and the movie can be really boring at time's."Wizards", is a good animated film from Ralph Bakshi, but it's not a film for everybody to watch. If you're a Ralph Bakshi fan, you would be interested with this film. If you're not, then you would make this a rental.

I first watched this film at the tender age of 9 and even then found it awfully sloppy and crude by animation or narrative standards. Bakshi claims that this movie is aimed at kids, and while I have to admit it's a lot more kid-friendly than something like COONSKIN or HEAVY TRAFFIC, there ain't a lot here for kids to like.Truly, this film doesn't hold up too well with a lot of unsuccessful blending of animation with rotoscoped footage, which, to be honest is more often just processed film than it is truly "rotoscoped", which would imply actual work went into it. The final battle scene is actually pretty hard to tell what in the Hades is going on with so many reused cells and ugly roto'd stock footage. I'm happy to see that his techniques in this area blended together much more beautifully in his next 3-4 films, the high point of which would be FIRE AND ICE.Too much of the script feels awfully first drafty. For instance the villains of the piece don't really seem to have much motivation for their desire to destroy the world beyond just the usual "oh, they're evil" mentality. Similarly, none of the heroes are likable or even the slightest bit interesting aside from the criminally underused Peace, the red uniform wearing android from the cover.However, I have to hand it to Bakshi for making up for his lack of resources with a lot of heart and a lot of love in rampant abundance. The most successful portions of this film are the side-vignettes showcasing the ridiculous villains. The scenes in "Skortch" are wonderfully gloomy and campy, complemented quite well by Andrew Belling's excellent (though at times quite dated) score. A lot of the vignettes are quite funny, though the success and amount of humor follows with the rest of the film's elements as being quite inconsistent.WIZARDS is a film with a lot of little things in it to appreciate even though the film as a whole is disjointed, cruddy, and rather tedious. I can say though that I'm glad I own it and watch it once every few years just because at the very least it's a great mood piece and has a much more personal & creative feel to it than most more recent animated features.