The Wizard (1989)

How sad is this?

As Good As It Gets

The acting in this movie is really good.

The movie really just wants to entertain people.

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.

There's a lot of things this movie is and isn't. It is a great trip down memory lane, a blast from the past, a reminder of all things late 80s and early 90s, and a shameless Nintendo promo. It isn't a work of art, a plausible scenario, or even a decent movie by its own standards.If you were born before 1994, this movie is pretty much a love letter to ye olden days when Nintendo was king of the living room and emotional strife was brewing in 9/10 American families. This has all the components of a story that could draw in kids at the time. Our story features Corey (Fred Savage) who steals away with his younger and emotionally disturbed brother Jimmy (Luke Edwards) to escape the mounting tension of their family that is falling apart around them. Along the way they encounter a feisty red-headed girl named Haley (Jenny Lewis) and discover that Jimmy has a natural talent for playing video games and beating anyone that he faces. Soon they devise a plan to escape to L.A. to compete in a video game contest for $50,000 and in doing so prove that Jimmmy isn't a lost cause and possibly saving their family in the process. However, they have to dodge the boys' father and older brother (played by Beau Bridges and Christan Slater), a kid bounty hunter, and beat the competition.Yeah, the plot is seemingly ridiculous, and it really is. At one point the kids resort to hustling money in arcades to pay for their cross country trip. Then they encounter the a 13 year old boy who lives by himself and only plays video games for sustenance (with the aid of the Power Glove) who plays the evil foil for the main characters. And finally, they go into a casino complete with preteen girls in full showgirl uniform selling concessions.As mentioned before, this is for people who were kids and remember the Nintendo Era in all its splendor. If you missed this gem growing up or don't care at all, you won't change your mind and should avoid this corny rose-tinted film at all costs. But if you want to inject some nostalgia into your eyes or haven't seen this since you were a kid, rent it off Amazon or track down a copy and have a laugh. We were dumb kids.

I was at truck stop shop in northeast Ohio getting a brake chamber replaced. Swapping stories with the other truckers. One was telling us about being around Reno. He heard Spanky over the c.b. "Haley says a grown man touched her in an inappropriate manner. Im gonna find this creep and kick his ass! Who's with me!!". About a dozen replied and said they were in,to include the gear jammer talking to us now. F.Y.I. ,the red Autocar Frank McRae drives is the same Autocar that Stallone drives in "Over The Top".Frank McRae drives the Autocar big rig.Frank McRae is a permanent A list actor!!Wendy Phillips is hot!!---One Truck Drivers' Opinion---erldwgstruckermovies.com

So back in the 80's there was this clever little gadget known as the Nintendo entertainment system, which brought all of us young and old alike together for some head smashin, hockey playing, mushroom eating good times...There were several things attached to NES back then that would transform a bystander into a hard core fan. One of those things which held much importance at the time was the magazine Nintendo Power. I have seen everything from early Atari with my grandad to Ps3, but never was there anything like NES. For what seems like ten years it had the market cornered and somewhere in that time the execs at NES decided, smartly i might add, to make a film with the best child star actor of all time, Fred Savage! At some point during this time there was a Major rumbling about this movie in Nintendo Power. This is pre-internet here, we had to get together and pass the magazine around to read about this movie, and the kicker was the secret game to be introduced during the climax of the movie. All i can say is this was a total watershed moment in NES history, peoples heads nearly exploded seeing Super Mario 3 on the big screen at the end. It's a movie packed to the brim with one liners and heart. And what i mean by heart is they didn't have to make a movie so utterly depressing about video games. Fred Savage's brother has lost his twin sister who DROWN, and he just wants to go to "cccalifornia" to put her things back inside a dinosaur. Well this movie confronts all kinds of issues, its a time-capsule and like i said its got a deeper plot then you could imagine for a movie about Italion plumbers. But they did it. And thank god for that! Ten thumbs up.