Review of Wizards (1977) by Harry W — 05 Feb 2015

With a fascination with Ralph Bakshi slowly emerging within myself, Wizards sounded like one of his better films.

Coming from the period of the 1970's, Wizards falls into the timeframe where its subject matter can be considered relevant to the counterculture movement and therefore has subtext which viewers need to address to embrace the full effect of the film. The problem is that things end up all over the place at times and seem to go nowhere at others. There is a very high concept premise at the heart of wizards, and though its meagre $2 million budget may prevent it from reaching the scale that it had the potential to, Ralp Bakshi finds a way to put it to use. It is a scattered one though because it keeps on pumping in different themes all over the place while its sense of adventure feels rather minimal and slow, the latter of which is strange consideirng that it only runs for 80 minutes. For a film with such a complex setting, Wizards seems a bit too simple in some areas while other concepts have a lot for the viewer to keep up with which can leave things confusing. I feel like there was a lot of potential in Wizards, and the intentions of the film were really nice while it came off as being stylish as well. But the intentions of the film really exceeded its narrative grasp and budgetary limitations which means that it feels sporadically entertaining at best, though fans of Ralph Bakshi's works will most likely embrace his iconic style and enjoy the fact that he tackles a new genre. For me, I once again enjoyed the style and the mood of the film but once again found that Ralph Bakshi did not supply it with a story which matched the standards of its concepts or the fun nature of its animation.

The atmosphere in Wizards is really psychadelic. In a wacky crossover between science fiction, fantasy and the wonderful mind of Ralph Bakshi, he is able to bring subject matter regarding Nazis into a whole new decade while combining it with contemporary elements to make it remain relevant and creative. It is mostly a treat on the ears, though the voice acting in Wizards does not seem to really be in place. While a lot of the time the voices do not match the characters, at others they do not seem to hit the same frequency to really make things feel any more legitimate. There are very many characters in Wizards who are more relevant to the story based on what they represent than who they are as they are largely thin charactetures, but the voice acting really doesn't do much for them because while at some times the mouths of characters don't sync up with the voice acting perfectly that is hardly a bother. But other characters do not even have mouths to move at all, and so their voices seem misplaced and blank with no real effect. It's a shame because the voice cast in Wizards are truly talented and make developed contributions to the film which the quality of the characters simply fail to live up to. But still, the music and the voice acting of Wizards contribute to making Wizards a film which has more value than simply its eye candy. Still, the visual quality of Wizards is equal with the atmosphere as the most memoable quality of the film.

The visual style of Wizards is like Dr. Seuss took a drug trip to Wonderland and drew it out. That is the best way to describe it, because parts of the setting look like Dr. Seuss characters would live there if they suffered from drug addiction with the fantasy elements being somewhat reminiscent of the tale of Alice in Wonderland. It may not be the most perfectly detailed animation, but considering the colour of the film, the psychadelic nature of how everything looks and the fact that it was all achieved on a small budget of only $2 million is an impressive step forward for Ralph Bakshi's credibility. He makes the film a thoroughly trippy experience and a very interesting one. The colour palette of the film is brilliant because it flawlessly captures the acid trip feel of everything. The designs of all the characters as well as the more trippy moments that make use of rotoscoping to old footage of war combat really give the film the iconic edge that makes it a Ralph Bakshi film, and it cleverly works around the budgetary limitations of the film and works alongside the atmosphere really whell/ And while the movements of the characters and objects may not always be fully organic, some of the moments in Wizards are thoroughly impressive creations for a low budget animated movie, in particular the final war scene in the film which was ripe with colour, energy and was relentless in depicting the violent nature of war without going over the top or denying the fantastical elements of the film. The final war scene of Wizards is one of the finest things that Ralph Bakshi has ever animated, and it left me with memories of strong imagery which make the film a memorable experience. Once again, Wizards serves as another film which leaves me wanting to explore Ralph Bakshi more. It doesn't precisely raise my standards of him too much, but it certainly remains better than The Lord of the Rings and Cool World because it serves as material of his own creation while it reminds me that his animation style is one to be fascinated by.

So Wizards once again proves that Ralph Bakshi has a keen passion for crafting a psychadelic atmosphere and giving it plenty of colourful animation to go along with it. Unfortunately, his ambitions actually exceeed the narrative grasp of the film which leaves its story to be scattered and slow.