Birthday Present

Maybe I'm just easy to please. I had fond memories of an early Ralph Bakshi animated movie called Wizards, and when it was recently released Mookie got it for me for my birthday.

Like I said, maybe I'm just easy to please, because I thought it held up well. Nobody would ever mistake this for great cinema, and what some people consider weaknesses I found to be strengths. You'll recognize some similarity of style with Bakshi's later Lord of the Rings, and it's somewhat reminiscent of Vaughn Bode's Cheech Wizard comics.

Wizards features some stunningly creative graphics to tell the story. In fact, the biggest disappointment are the conventionally animated portions, because it's pretty damn poor. Not that the story is any great shakes either. There are some funny bits though.

One of my favorites is when Elenor is being held by the fairies, and the fairies are pissed. A monster shows up and starts to raise hell.

Guard: "Uh, Miss? You'd better do something about that thing."

Elenor: "It'd be better if you release me and we all just run away."

Well, it always made me laugh.

I'm not going to talk about the plot, except to say that it's not as bad as some claim.

My suggestion, if you see this, is to just go with the flow. Appreciate the movie for what it is, and don't expect too much. It helps to be easy to please, I guess.

Peace.

Posted by Ted at September 12, 2004 06:38 AM | TrackBack