Wizards

Plot synopsis:
Earth has been devastated by a nuclear war instigated by five terrorists, and it has taken two million years for the radioactive clouds to once again allow sunlight to reach the surface. Only a handful of humans have survived, while the rest have changed into mutants who roam the radioactive wastelands. In the idyllic land of Montagar, the true ancestors of man – fairies, elves and dwarves – have returned and live in peace. During a celebration of 3,000 years of peace Delia, queen of the fairies, falls into a trance and leaves the party. Puzzled, the fairies follow her to her home and discover that she has given birth to twin wizards. Avatar, a kind and good wizard, spends much of his boyhood entertaining his mother with beautiful visions, while Blackwolf, a mutant, never visits his mother, but spends his time torturing small animals.
After many years, Delia dies. Blackwolf is excited; he believes he will take over her leadership and rule the land. Avatar opposes his evil brother and forces him to fight for the kingship. Avatar's magic is empowered by his grief, allowing him to defeat Blackwolf. Blackwolf leaves Montagar with a vow to return and "make this a planet where mutants rule".
Years later, Blackwolf has risen to lead the dark land of Scortch, where he and his vast army of goblins, ogres and mutants salvage and restore ancient technology. He tries to attack Montagar twice, but is foiled both times when his mutant warriors become bored or sidetracked in the midst of battle. Blackwolf then discovers an old projector and reels of Nazi propaganda footage. He enhances the projector with magical power and uses it in battle to both inspire his own soldiers and horrify enemy troops. The mutants destroy the elf army.
Meanwhile, in Montagar, Avatar has become a tutor tasked with training the president's daughter Elinore to become a full-fledged fairy. Suddenly, the president is assassinated by Necron 99, a robot sent by Blackwolf to kill believers in magic. Avatar confronts the robot and battles it using brain reading. Necron 99 loses the desire for war and changes his name to Peace. Avatar learns from the robot that the "dream machine" – the projector – is Blackwolf's secret weapon, inspiring his armies with images of ancient warfare. Avatar, Elinore, Peace, and the elf spy Weehawk set out to destroy the projector and save the world from another Holocaust.
In a forest inhabited by fairies, Peace has an intuition that something is amiss shortly before the group is accosted by the leader of the fairies, Sean (Mark Hamill). Weehawk realizes that Peace is missing, when an unseen assassin kills Sean and kidnaps Elinore. Avatar and Weehawk begin to search for Elinore in the forbidden Fairy Sanctuary, but Weehawk falls into a chasm and insists that Avatar leave him and find the girl. He locates her, captured by fairies and small human-like creatures, just as she is about to be killed. Avatar attempts to explain that they did not kill Sean, but the fairies don't believe him, and shoot him with an arrow. Wounded in the shoulder, Avatar refuses to fight back, which impresses the fairy king. Instead of executing them, he merely teleports Avatar and Elinore to a snowy mountaintop. Avatar and Elinore resume their journey despite the poor conditions, but they soon realize they are wandering in circles. Weehawk and Peace finally find them and together they find their way out of the mountains. Soon Avatar and the others encounter the encamped army of an elf General who is preparing to attack Scortch the following day, but Blackwolf launches a sneak attack that night. Elinore is outside with Peace when one of Blackwolf's mutants sneaks into camp and attacks her, but Avatar is able to stop it before it hurts her. Things turn for the worse, though, as a battle tank arrives to destroy the camp. Peace manages to disable the crew, but as he inspects the vehicle, Elinore kills him with a sword and climbs into the tank. It drives away as Avatar and Weehawk watch in confusion.
The next day, Avatar and Weehawk enter Scortch by ship and make for Blackwolf's castle while the General leads his elf warriors in a bloody battle to distract Blackwolf's forces. The pair splits up, Weehawk tracking Elinore while Avatar goes after his brother Blackwolf. Weehawk nearly kills Elinore, but she explains that Blackwolf had been controlling her mind ever since she first touched Peace. Blackwolf declares his magic superior to Avatar's and demands his surrender. Avatar admits that he hasn't practiced magic in some time, and offers to show Blackwolf one last trick that their mother showed him when Blackwolf wasn't around. Avatar then pulls a gun and fatally shoots Blackwolf. With the loss of their leader, the mutants give up fighting. With Montagar's safety secured, Weehawk returns home as the new ruler, but Avatar and Elinore decide to go start their own kingdom instead.

Tags: fantasy, violence, cult, good versus evil, psychedelic, absurd, satire, romantic

Review:
Avatar rules the peaceful kingdom of Montagar with wisdom and magic, while the evil Blackwolf rules the dark land of Scortch with technology and war.It's a great combination of science fiction and fantasy set years into a strange post apocalyptic future where broken tanks, guns, and Nazi propaganda are regarded as ancient artifacts.
Wonderful supporting characters include Weehawk, a courageous and cynical elf, Elinore, a young fairy princess whom Avatar is in love with, and Necron 99, a robotic assassin who is turned into a good robot named Peace.
Treat yourself to a symbolic retro-future style film loaded with psychedelic animation, memorable characters, and a truly wonderful adventure that will transport you to a whole new world set ten million years into the distant future..
Not likely.Bakshi's able to pit the essence of fantasy against the monstrosity of an ever-growing being we call "technology." The animation is simple (albeit complex and interesting at times) yet unique, the characters are conflicted and well-developed, and the twisted, somewhat random humor adds a twist of reality in a seemingly hopeless world.
Although oddly structured (our protagonists don't set off on their quest until about half an hour into the movie) and weighed down with exposition, Wizards tells a good story, the art is excellent, and it has one of the coolest animated battles I've everseen...
The story deals with wizards and elves in the distant future who dig up long-forgotten Nazi propaganda films and old war machinery, which are used by evil creatures to try and conquer the good creatures.
It's almost disturbing at times watching old WWII war movie footage with German soldiers fighting alongside animated demons against psychedelic-colored backgrounds.
But we all know, that in love or war, nothing is forbidden.The good twin (Avatar), the princess of fairy-land, and a once evil, but now good android, makes the team that needs to stop Blackwolf, and save this world from evil.Okay, this sounds really cheap:) And if i tell you even looks cheap in many scenes...
The story even gets Nazis involved, which makes some scenes more than disturbing...So its still a true Bakshi feature film, only the violence and sex is abit toned down.
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.
Yet, we are supposed to believe a wizard has found a working projector and reels of film from MILLIONS of years ago and by showing the old propaganda film, it will magically inspire the enemy and demoralize the good guys?
I loved everything that the film swings for (anti-establishment, questioning technology taking over our humanity, trying to tell an actual story instead of animating "horses eating apples"), but its delivery is a bit askew.
I LOVED THE ROTOSCOPING...it was my favorite thing (aside from the wonderfully intricate background paintings) to watch, and the DVD has a wonderful "making of" video with Bakshi describing what the process was like.
Having Bakshi describe the story in the "making of" video almost sounds like a completely difficult thing to capture, and I think the film needed to be worked on for a few more years.
Thousands of years later, they grow old and must do battle when the evil wizard stumbles on some old footage of Hitler's Nazi propaganda and decides to brainwash an army of mutants to do his bidding and destroy the peaceful countryside.
"Wizards" was an improvement over "Fritz," but I still found myself thinking that it probably would've made more of an impact on me if I'd seen it in a theatre in the late '70s after smoking a couple of joints.The story takes place a few million years in the future, after a nuclear holocaust has more or less destroyed humanity; the few humans that are left are now monstrous, radioactive mutants who dwell in a region called "Skortch." On the flip side, the "Good Lands" (i.e. the area unpolluted by fallout) is populated by fairies and elves, whom we're told are the true ancestors of humanity.
The narration at the beginning of the film tells us that one special night long ago, twin wizards were born, one good (named "Avatar," wonder if Cameron had to pay Bakshi to use that name?
But now Blackwulf has introduced ancient technology (in the form of recovered tanks, guns, airplanes and Nazi propaganda films, which he uses to fire up his troops) to prepare for one final assault on the Good Lands, and his brother Avatar must come out of peaceful semi-retirement to battle him once and for all (with the aid of an elf warrior, a captured assassin robot, and a big-boobed, ditzy fairy who wears very little).The animation in "Wizards" is nice enough (though a little dated looking nowadays), the good guys are all Disney cute while Blackwulf and his mutant legions of froglike creatures are Frank Frazetta scary/ugly, which makes for an odd combination of styles.
Its slim run time of just about 80 minutes keeps things moving quickly enough that the viewer won't get bored.Too violent for a kid's movie and a little too weird and allegorical for the average grown up viewer, "Wizards" has some interesting ideas and visuals but isn't a must-see except for hardcore animation buffs.Extra trivia note, see if you can spot a pre-"Star Wars" Mark Hamill in a small voice part..
The fact that it is coupled with an overall "fairy tale-ish" look that seems more at home among those cheap "ages 3 to 8" cartoons makes the viewing experience a very unique one.It really is too bad that so much time and effort went into developing the whole underlying political themes that nothing much else went into the aspects of the film that would matter to most people, aka the dialog and the animation itself.Though the story is simple enough to follow, the characters come across as just plain boring thanks to, IMO, horribly written lines and sub-par acting.
The only time this jarring clash of animation styles actually worked was during the final climatic battle where the surreal images and the hauntingly dark rotoscoped footage effectively conveyed the hectic confusion of a real battlefield.(though i question the choice of retro jazzy background music)To be honest, I found myself rooting most for Blackwolf's green gas-masked soldiers.
Some of the battle scenes with footage of Hitler and his men and silhouette of various live-action movie battle reenactments of World War II mixed with animated depictions of blood also were pretty interesting.
The whole reason animation has the appeal that it does is that the artist can take us to places that are otherwise too expensive, or impossible, to bring to the big screen via location shooting, special effects, or a constructed set."Wizards" could've been a really fantastic and impressive film with some polish, but the artist, because of both budgetary constraints and artistic bent, instead leaned away from a high gloss, Disney-like art style, and went the non-traditional, rough-edge, route.
I had seen Heavy Metal unedited for the first time (this is in the days when you had to go to a sci-fi con and buy a bootleg copy if you wanted to see anything more than the edited TBS version.)  This film was recommended to me along with Fritz the Cat (this is far superior, I may add.)  I quickly became a fan of all Bakshi animation.
Evil) but it turns into more depth with the characters take their full stance on the situations at hand (the assassin become Peace).I'm going to look for this movie so I can give it another watch and give a firm and final stance on my opinions of it, but I don't think i'm too off the mark with a 7 out of 10.Good watch, good times..
Like Fantastic Planet and Heavy Metal, it falls into that small group of animated movies that can be considered bona fide cult movies.Its story has a couple of twins, one good (Avatar) and one evil (Blackwolf) fight one and other for domination; the former with magic, the latter with technology.
The scene where cartoon characters watch old Nazi films is certainly very memorable.In the final analysis Wizards is a strange movie.
Still I really love the character animation which does look a bit odd but you get use to it and it fits the strange but cool nature of the film.
This was something revolutionary for it's time, you never really seen an animated film and show ever go this far with the action; which is why I want to see the animation genre take this step more often, by today's standards we're all more than ready.The story is great and is what really powers the film for me, I love that this is a combination of both the post apocalyptic subgenere and fantasy which is something I really don't see much in both sci-fi and fantasy and would like to see more.
And the conflict between Blackwolf's army and the Magical Creatures is also an irony because the Nazi's were trying to destroy even possesses everything that sacred and mechanize the entire world by smashing everything that was different or outside their normal convention or thinking.The film I feel has an antifascist message, it's terrible destructive nature and why fascism and the things with it should remain lost and can and should never be restored.Wizards has plenty of magic and power.Rating: 4 stars.
Bakshi's first "family" movie is rebellious to the very notion of what can be done in fantasy/animated films.
It helped a little to see some of Ralph Bakshi's points on the DVD of Wizards; he wanted to make a 'family' movie that wasn't the typical Disney product.
Bakshi's post-apocalyptic/neo-Tolkien tale opens with (and has intermittently) a sort of "official" narrator voice telling of how the world mostly got destroyed by nuclear means, and then small pockets of what would usually be fairytale creatures- fairies, elves, and assorted mutants- sprouted up in pockets thousands of years later.
A Queen fairy has two wizard sons, one good and one evil, who's divide splits up what remains of the existing world.Blackwolf, the evil one, amasses an army of mutants to decimate and control what's left of the world, by using unearthed Nazi propaganda films projected onto the sky (that's how I could figure it anyway), which at first confuses the mutants who don't quite get what they're seeing with marching soldiers and an always angry Hitler.
And yet it's never a sense of the surreal or, more appropriately what could be called "magic realism", that feels cheating or false in Bakshi's world.Wizards is not just simply a fantasy movie, although it has more than its share of fantasy elements: the quest, the forces of good and evil facing directly in defined black and white terms (albeit with the good this time a little kooky with Avatar's Peter Falk sounding voice and mannerisms), overtly fantastical battles waged by one side eager to defend home and hearth and the other mindless drones, and other miscellaneous side characters put in on the heroes' quest to take up goof time.
Totalitarianism is really at the gut of the matter when looking at main villains like these ('these' in reference to Lord of the Rings, which Bakshi, later director of himself, is inspired by here), and the power of such everlastingly impactive images end up being presented in the projector- device of the propaganda at Blackwolf's control- that also puts the good warrior elves into a terrified trance before they meet their doom.It's a very clever concept to deal with, but Bakshi doesn't let this just sit on its own.
All of this, and Bakshi and company's consistent use of awesome color and special effects, characters too weird to really love but always compelling, topped with ending that has a big wink to the audience (young and old, however young might not get the joke as much), make it a real sleeper of 1977; out two weeks before Star Wars, this was just another of the slew, even if slightly under the radar, of fantasy/science fiction movies out that year that turned the tide for the genre..
(And believe me, I do not intend that final word as an insult; it's simply the truth, and it's stated with a candidness of which I can only imagine Bakshi himself would approve.)The "modern" (i.e., post-1984) viewer would not be likely to proclaim WIZARDS to be "a fun time at the movies," or however one might put it.
Then there is Avatar, a lecherous wizard who would rather boff his girlfriend than fight his evil brother and finally Weehawk, the traditional hero - fighting for everything good and right.The final scene has stayed with me forever 'Now I'm going to show you something mother never showed you, you SOB.' has been one of the few true 'anti-hero' climaxes I've ever scene in a film.Anyway - just see this movie if for no other reason than to tear it apart here!.
This movie was so awful out of 10 people I was the only one who was able to stay awake enough to turn it off, it was absolutely awful.The use of real war footage in the cartoon while innovative and unique at the time, was not enough to make up for the lack of an engaging plot, story etc..
Some of the images are quite striking, and character and creature design are enjoyable, as elves and mutants ultimately engage in war.The vocal performances are wonderful, especially from Holt; also lending their voices are David Proval (Romanus' co-star in "Mean Streets") and Mark "Luke Skywalker" Hamill.A short-and-sweet running time (81 minutes) and a rousing score composed by Andrew Belling further assist in making this an enjoyable feature, if not as satisfying overall as Bakshis' later "Fire and Ice".Seven out of 10..
So let's go back to the late 70s, when Bakshi decided to take a break from adult animation to give us his first "family" film, Wizards.
The result is a flawed albeit thought provoking and intriguing fantasy film that still remains in tact after 40 years.The story is about two wizard brothers named Avatar (the peaceful wizard who rules with wisdom and magic) and Blackwolf (The evil ruler of the dark land Scortch with technology under his belt to wage war).
Avatar is the good hearted wizard who struggles whether to use his powers for good or bad reasons, the robot Peace also struggles with siding between killing those who are good or preserving them, Weehawk is definitely a bad ass you don't want to mess with, and while Eleanor and Blackwolf are the least memorable characters, the savagery that Blackwolf inflicts on his creatures is just gut wrenching and Eleanor is pretty decent eye candy if nothing else.The animation shows that it was made cheap, yet it still retains itself with it's own style, whether it be the cartoonish designs, the mystic colorful backgrounds, the comic book style storyboards, and especially usage of the rotoscoping that really gives the film an old school feel to it.
This is one of the grimmest and vibrantly colorful films I've seen in quite some time, and it looks so unique that it's worthy viewing to gain a sense of 70s animation.The movie isn't without it's flaws though.
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.
The rest of the movie is their quest to find Blackwolf's evil machine and destroy it, and him I don't have a favorite scene, because I love the whole film from beginning to end.And I'm sure some mutants wanted to be human again.
I would also like to add Bakshi's melange of animated styles, and they don't mesh well here, whether it be the Disneyeque drawings of cute little Avatar the good wizard and a scene involving two cute Yiddish elves hitting each other on their rear ends, the erotic visions of the sexy fairy goddess Elinore and some buck-naked obese elves, and Bakshi's annoying trademark rotoscoping during the battle scenes.
Near the end of the movie, your stomach will turn as you see the cartoon elves and monsters, the rotoscoped tanks and weapons, and the live action Nazi propaganda films in the battle scenes, and then the predictable ending where Avatar shoots Blackwolf with an old pistol.
Anyway, the movie is about a good and a bad wizard who rule different parts of the world and are brothers.
That's it, daddy-o.Wizards is Ralph Bakshi's attempt at making a "unique fantasy film." Unfortunately, while he has an interesting 'big picture' idea for a story, so many individual scenes--"tactical storytelling" as I call it--don't work (much like American Pop) that the movie's message is lost.
Alas poor Ralph made into a film that is just hard to take seriously or even enjoy a whole lot..."Wizards" is a weird animated fantasy that takes place on Earth millions of years after a terrorist attack caused a nuclear holocaust.
I have enjoyed some of Bakshi's films (without knowing they were his), but did not realize that until after I watched Wizards and looked into it.
This proves that he can do something right, even though he's also the guy who who fouled up Lord of the Rings, and made the outstandingly bad Cool World.The animation is generally good, although the rotoscoped battle scenes feel rather long at times.