Welcome back to Dark Corners Streaming.
1977’s Wizards, which you can find on Archive.org, has lived a while on Dark Corners’ To-Do list
as it was requested by one of our Patreons for a bad movie review,
but every time I start, I just can’t see it that way.
It’s not that it’s great, and it shares a great deal with some of the bad movies we review,
notably a plot that is straight out of many fantasy and/or post-apocalyptic 80s films we have reviewed.
‘It’s all a disaster’
Tonally, it is wildly inconsistent, from slapstick comedy to bloody violence.
From kids cartoon to fairy prostitutes.
'Hello handsome.'
Once minute referencing Disney
and the next Fritz the Cat.
‘They’ve killd Fritz!’
Also the work of Wizards director, Ralph Bakshi.
Most of the opening five minutes is voiceover backstory and is largely unnecessary.
But the still images also betray an ambition that budget denied to Bakshi.
'The rest of humanity had changed into hideous mutants.'
This limitation means that cartoony characters wander through hellscapes of dystopian tech and post-apocalyptic nightmare.
And it’s this vaunting ambition, even more than the distinctive animation,
that makes the film worthwhile to me.
Sometimes the low budget proved an unexpected blessing,
forcing Bakshi to rotoscope the largescale battle scenes,
animating over scenes from films like Alexander Nevsky and Zulu,
creating an effect that is genuinely fantastical, and oddly disturbing –
Bakshi would use it again and to still greater effect in his Lord of the Rings.
Also counting in the film’s favour is its addressing of larger themes,
albeit not very subtly.
This is never a subtle film.
'Blackwolf the mutant wizard would never visit his mother and spent his time torturing small animals.’
But it can be a complex one, admitting shades of grey into a genre that is typically black and white.
The battle between magic and technology never as clear cut as it appears,
characters not simply divided into friends and enemies.
‘The key to creating hysteria: fear’
And its message of how propaganda can be used as a literal weapon is more relevant today than ever before.
With so much going on and with a director obviously so keen to explore and expand this world he has created,
it is perhaps no surprise to find that this falls prey to another flaw familiar from those movies I mentioned earlier;
the characters never engage.
‘Sometimes being a wizard is lonely at the top’
There is a quest narrative, as good wizard Avatar sets out to confront his estranged brother Blackwolf,
‘Hello’
but its poorly developed and its characters are largely arcless,
drawn in broad strokes.
I definitely see this as, to some extent a bridging film for Bakshi between his x-rated Heavy Traffic and Fritz the Cat
and The Lord of the Rings, a film I love.
But it is it’s own thing as well.
‘Well that has to be the biggest bummer of a trip I’ve ever been on’
What that thing is I don’t know, it is deeply flawed.
While visually it is never boring, narratively, it sometimes is because of that lack of character engagement,
‘Our quest is saved’
and yet, I can’t dismiss it as a bad film.
Partly because of the thwarted ambition that still shines through its best moments.
‘Stop elf’
But also because it is different.
And if you watch enough movies, then you appreciate that more than something good, but I’ve seen it all before.
I’ve never seen this before.
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What are your thoughts on Wizards and the work of Ralph Bakshi in general? Let us know in the comments below.