Friday, July 3, 2015

Wizards


 A Ralph Bakshi production from the year 1977, Wizards is an animated film that mixes Lord of the Rings type fantasy with World War 2 ephemera into one strange, Reese's Peanut Butter Cup of cartoon weird-ness. I imagine a lot of the adult viewers of this film were eating peanut butter cups during the movie, as they probably were suffering from marijuana induced hunger pains.
  Wizards is set in a post apocalyptic Earth that, free of technology, has developed back into a fantasy land. Elves, fairies and magic have reappeared onto the scene, along with a race of mutants who were spawned by nuclear fallout. The titular wizards are Avatar and Blackwolf, brothers who are polar opposites on the good and evil spectrum. The evil brother, Blackwolf, is attempting to conquer the world armed with technology, like guns, tanks, and a projector that he uses to screen old Nazi propaganda films.  
  The other protagonists consist of a sexily drawn fairy queen, a fierce warrior elf, and a robot assassin initially named Nekron 99, and then later renamed Peace by the heroes, who he is forced to lead to Blackwolf's lair.
  The animation style is quite cartoonish and far from reality, and more resembles something you'd see in a comic strip, which is why the addition of the stock footage makes things all the more surreal. It really is a contrast of visual styles that is rarely seen, and makes Wizards an experience that you won't soon forget.
  As a movie I would have a hard time recommending this to anyone who isn't a big fan of unusual/mature animated movies i.e. Heavy Metal, Fantastic Planet, or Fire and Ice. While Wizards is more family friendly then those pictures, it's still a little stranger then your standard Disney movie. If you've yearned to watch psychedelic images of fantasy creatures mixed in with actual stock footage of Adolph Hitler then this is the movie you've been waiting for. I have a feeling that it is children who would best appreciate this, especially ones who like to draw or read comic books. While 32 year old me wasn't blown away by Wizards, I can easily say that 13 year old me would've had much more of an appreciation for a movie that contains scenes of elves getting mowed down with machine guns.

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