Having done a couple video game movie reviews, now for something similar but different. A movie about video games.

The Wizard is not a movie however. The Wizard is a 90 minute Nintendo commercial showing off all their wares. The Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), their games, peripherals (we’ll get to one in particular later on), magazines and the Nintendo hotline (a gaming advice phone number) are all present. Nintendo were going to use this opportunity to the fullest.

Movies about people playing video games are a rarity and probably with good reason. Video games are an insular activity generally played at home, usually alone.  In movie terms, getting the last hit on the final boss is not as cinematic as the spiralling pass for the match winning touchdown.

Nintendo had a trick up their sleeve though, for 1990 was the year they held the Nintendo World Championships at Universal Studios in California (the films other major sponsor). As you would imagine, the aim was to find the world’s best Nintendo player (who lived in America). Special Nintendo World Championship NES game cartridges were given to some of the contestants who took part. These cartridges are extremely valuable for retro collectors and have sold for as much as $100,000.

Compared to its rivals in the video game industry, Nintendo has a far cuddlier, family friendly image. Cutesy even. With that in mind, The Wizard starts with 8 year old Jimmy who has been put in a mental institution following the death of his twin sister who drowned two years previously and his parents have now divorced. The only word he seems able to say is ‘California’.

His elder brother, Corey (played by Fred Savage from The Wonder Years) busts him out of the institution and they plan to run away. Unfortunately, they don’t have any money and it’s at the bus station where they meet Hayley, another young runaway. They discover Jimmy’s natural talent for video games and Hayley tells them about the ‘Video Games Armageddon’ event taking place in, you guessed it…California! What an amazing coincidence.

Jimmy’s mum hires a bounty hunter to find the boys and bring them back. The father (Beau Bridges) isn’t happy about this and sets off with his other son, Nick (Christian Slater) to find them himself. As you would for any long road trip, Nick remembers to pack his NES and all his games. This leads to the father-son bonding over video games we’ve all experienced in our lives.

They also get into comedic scrapes with the bounty hunter as they try to sabotage the others attempts to find the boys. Dog the Bounty Hunter he ain’t.

Meanwhile, the children are making their way across the country earning money by beating truckers and businessmen at various arcade machine games (Nintendo ones obviously, sorry Sega). Then they meet Lucas leading to what is possibly the most remembered thing in the whole movie: the Power Glove. And it’s bad. So bad.

Many people think motion control is a new innovation but actually Nintendo were developing it back in the 80’s. The Wizard might be the only place you ever see the power glove actually work but it shows even back then Nintendo were innovating with new things.

After a demonstration of Lucas’s skills with the glove, the trio realise they might have bitten off more they can chew. And Lucas likes his Power Glove, he really likes it.

Anyway, after a few mishaps including a near escape from the bounty hunter, the kids eventually make it to California and enter the tournament. And who should they see there but Lucas, unfortunately he is sans glove.

After playing through some Nintendo games, Jimmy wins through to the final. Before that takes place there is time for a quick tour of Universal Studios courtesy of being chased by the bounty hunter. Jimmy eventually makes it back in time for the final where he will be facing, of course, Lucas. There’s a girl there as well, who may well have had a name but she obviously wasn’t going to win so she doesn’t really need one.

There’s a twist though, they’ll be playing a new game. One never seen before. Not just any game though, this is Super Mario Bros. 3. This was actually quite a big deal. Nintendo had been very tight-lipped about their next Mario game and being the pre-internet age, this was as much a surprise for the audience as it was for the characters in the film. And there it was, Mario in all his raccoon-suit wearing glory.

All of Jimmy’s family, including his mother, have now arrived in the audience and are there to shout out advice on a game they’ve never seen before. Which is probably the most accurate thing in the whole film.

In the end, Jimmy comes from behind to beat Lucas and win the $50,000 prize. Lucas was playing with a handicap though, using those antiquated controllers. If he’d had his Power Glove he blatantly would have won.

Jimmy then goes to celebrate with his now reunited family. Nintendo, bringing broken families back together for 25 years.

The Wizard isn’t an especially bad movie, it’s very much your standard family film of the period but the proliferation of Nintendo products throughout is a distraction. Product placement in films is one thing but The Wizard takes it to another level.

It’s also interesting to see for the then rising stars of Christian Slater and Fred Savage. Though if you ever saw an episode of The Wonder Years, you know what you’re getting from Savage.

Now I’m going to look on ebay for a Power Glove. It’s so bad.

Trailer:

The Power Glove:

Bad Movie Appreciation Society: Super Mario Bros.

The recent death of Bob Hoskins got me thinking about some of the great films he’s been in and how I should write an article about one of them as a tribute. Then I wrote one about Super Mario Bros. instead.

Bob Hoskins is perhaps not the most well-known actor but he was still a fine one. He does a great job in Hook (along with Dustin Hoffman in an otherwise mediocre flick) and a does a great turn as a mobster in The Long Good Friday. There’s also a film he was in with an animated rabbit.

Unfortunately for him though, this blog is about bad movies so…

Everyone knows and loves Mario don’t they? The most recognisable face in all of video games, Mario has been around over 30 years, first appearing in 1981 arcade game, Donkey Kong, then known simply as ‘Jumpman.’ Two years later, now with his Mario moniker, he now had his own game titled Mario Bros appearing alongside his brother Luigi. When the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) was released in America in 1985, Super Mario Bros was one of the pack in titles. The rest as they say is history.

Mario has been the face of Nintendo and they have certainly milked every nickel and dime they can get from him. As well as his core platform games, there’s Mario Kart, Mario Tennis, Dr. Mario (a puzzle game), Mario Strikers, Mario Paint and about 1000 others. Mario is so prominent in Nintendo video games you sometimes have to wonder if he’s only been put in as Nintendo don’t think a game will sell without him.

So perhaps it was inevitable, that eventually someone in Hollywood would want a piece of the Mario pie. And in 1993, they eventually did.

It’s generally accepted that video games to movies don’t work but to be fair to the producers on this one, there weren’t many examples around at the time to really make that judgement. Plus Mario had a popular TV series on at the time, The Super Mario Bros. Super Show, combining cartoon and live action segments that is still fondly remembered to this day.

Mario was ripe to sell to family audiences with its lovable characters, great music and bright, vivid world’s. So the obvious thing to do is remove all those elements on the film.

The plot of the movie is that there’s an alternate dimension where dinosaurs did not die but instead evolved into people not too dissimilar to humans just with dinosaur rather than mammal dna. King Koopa (played by Dennis Hopper. Koopa is actually the name of the villain in the TV series, in the games he’s known as Bowser) wants to take over both dimensions by merging them using a portal two plumbers from Brooklyn, Mario (Hoskins) and Luigi (John Leguizamo) , accidentally fall through. His plan is then to devolve all the humans on earth back to their primate state using his devolving ray.

Then there’s a sub-plot with Daisy, who is actually a princess of the alternate dimension but has no memory of this as she was sent through the portal by her mother to keep her safe when Koopa seized power and turned her father into a giant fungus. And as every Mario fan knows, when Daisy’s around she’s going to get kidnapped and it’s up to the brothers to rescue her.

 The alternate dimension is your standard dystopian vision right down to the seedy nightclub. Obviously, it’s patrolled by Koopa’s personal police force, the Koopa Troopers. Amongst these are the Goombas. Not the angry little mushroom things from the game, these are giant hulking lizard creatures but with ridiculously tiny heads. And when Mario Bros. are trapped in an elevator with these behemoths, what’s the best way to escape them? Why, make them dance of course.

Mario and Luigi are helped in their quest to save the world by the fungus that grows throughout the world, that we come to assume is controlled by Daisy’s father. It’s always been a curious thing in the Mario world that magic mushrooms are always a positive thing. It’s almost amazing that more of a fuss hasn’t been kicked up about it.

And if a story like that doesn’t win an Oscar, there is no justice in this world.

There are some good things in this movie, like when we learn Mario’s full name is Mario Mario (obvious really, when you think about it). And then there’s er... and erm…what about…hmm.

To give the last word on this, we turn to the man who inspired this review, the late Bob Hoskins. When asked in an interview three questions, ‘What is the worst film you’ve ever done?’, ‘What is your biggest disappointment?’ and ‘If you could edit your past, what would you change?’ his answer to all three was simply, ‘Super Mario Bros.’