Konterr Brilliant and touching

Dynamixor The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

Bergorks If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.

Guillelmina The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

elicopperman While I haven't seen everything by the man, I have nothing but the up most respect for animation auteur, Ralph Bakshi. Had it not been for this man and his influential work, independent, adult and even television animation would not have prospered up to the point of The Simpsons, the works of Don Hertzfeldt, anything good on adult swim, and a lot of creator driven cartoons on Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network, or even Disney. 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). What we get is a great social commentary of an evil sorcerer trying to let science and technology rule over peace and prosperity for his own selfish needs, kinda like old dictators who used whatever they could to take over. The characters themselves, while not the most developed, definitely shine with their roles. 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 editing can come off as a little uneven and choppy at times, some of the voice-acting is kinda wooden, , and let's just say the final confrontation isn't as epic as the rotoscoped battle scenes. Otherwise, if you're looking for a time capsule to the 70s that takes a great approach to the fight between peace and technology, then find Wizards any way you can. It's certainly worth a watch if you're into post apocalyptic films as much as the next guy.

Nikonani S The man (Bakshi) clearly holds no regard for the standard fare of his profession: he'll cut scenes of low-budget fighting faeries(?) and slap them next to low-budget rotoscopes, he'll juice up pulp fantasy with pulp Nazi affection and pulp gunplay because he'll feel swords uninteresting to draw, he'll slap fat tits onto a main character faerie and slap off her clothes because he wants to draw things that would be fun to slap in real life, he slap his screenwriter if a scene requires more than five lines of dialogue without the slap-faerie with slap-tits slapping some slappable robot with a slapped in gun.It's a movie of slapping in doodles. The movie is just a bunch of doodles in a high school boy's notebook. That's fine, and the eclecticism forced by the low budget and high aspirations makes those doodles captivating. But they're just doodles, lacking entirely the vague and social quirks of "Fritz The Cat" or "Heavy Traffic".

Donald F 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.

Red-Barracuda This is one of the trio of Ralph Bakshi animated features that appeared in cinemas in the 70's. The most high profile was his adaption of The Lord of the Rings, while his most respected was the subversive Fritz the Cat. Wizards falls somewhere between these two. It combines the fantasy world of the former with the adult themes of the latter. As a result it is a bizarre and somewhat uneven feature that is undoubtedly somewhat unique. 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. This is our world in the future, a world of elves and wizards. Old war machinery and Nazi propaganda films are rediscovered by evil beings and used as a means to militarily conquer weaker peoples. It's quite clear that the story as such presents a cautionary tale. It suggests that uncontrolled technology is a very bad thing, while it also reiterates the evil of fascism. What, of course, is so strange with all of this is that it is presented within the framework of an all-out fantasy adventure cartoon. Wizards is a good example of one of the earliest examples of animation that was consciously moving away from children's stories. In truth, though, the story here isn't all that great and the characters not especially good. For this reason, the film never fully engages.In terms of visual artistry Wizards is something of a mixed bag. It combines traditional animation alongside detailed still drawings, real footage and rotoscoping. The latter always feels like a bit of a cheap way to do animation but it is done here more successfully than it was in Bakshi's later Lord of the Rings. It's used in a more stylised way here and doesn't seem so out-of-place. The various art styles are put together in what has to be termed a multi-media approach. I think it mainly works and certainly gives the film a different look and feel. Some of the animated characters are a little poor though such as the character of Avatar who looks ridiculously comical. This juxtaposition of children's comic characters with decidedly heavy imagery such as swastikas and Nazi footage is weird to say the least. The scene where cartoon characters watch old Nazi films is certainly very memorable.In the final analysis Wizards is a strange movie. Not an entirely successful one but at least it was daring to be different. For fans of cult 'toons this is a must though.