Some things I liked some I did not.

good back-story, and good acting

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

I imagine that if I'd had a stronger childhood connection to "The Wizard", then I'd be better able to appreciate it as an adult. I did see this movie in the theater - I was 9, so naturally I gravitated toward the Nintendo aspect - but no further rewatches until many years later. But it feels like a movie at odds with itself. You've got the competing interests of a family drama (and there's some fairly serious stuff going on here) with a branded product designed to sell NES games and a trip to Universal Studios. They don't gel. There's a "Karate Kid" feel with our contender training and strolling into the tournament, but once he's won (because he's supposed to), then we've got that whole family subplot we still have to sort out in the closing moments. Almost as an afterthought.I know this is a kids' movie and I have no problem with that. But the toy commercial cheapens the serious stuff. Although I do think it's very funny that Lucas Barton has attained his own Internet fame.5/10

The problem with watching The Wizard now is the fact that it is so dated, and is no longer relevant to anybody, other than people amused by the classics, such as myself. Today's kids aren't going to want to watch this film simply because "it's old." Even I, a retro-Nintendo fan, was bored throughout most of this film.Reason being why this film was so big at the time was because kids everywhere were in love with the Nintendo Entertainment System, and wanted to see and play anything to do with it. Plus, not only was it a movie with some games referenced in it, it also had the sneak peek of Super Mario Bros. 3. I can't imagine the looks on a child's face as they saw some early footage of one of the greatest games in video game history. It's things like that juice-up the nostalgia meter, but don't do much to juice-up the likability of the film.The story is about two boys, Corey (Savage) and his brother Jimmy (Edwards), who run away from their parents after a family fights consume the house. Jimmy suffers from a serious mental condition, and remains silent for most of the film. Corey realizes that Jimmy is "a wizard" at video games. He seems pretty calm about his skills as well, and they soon meet up with Haley (Lewis), another runaway who tells them about "Video Armageddon," a big video game event that showcasing player's skill. Suddenly, they are en route to it.The Wizard's main problem is it is overly written and completely unrealistic, but I think that is what most kids will like about it. Home Alone was very over-the-top, but kids like it because the unlikely happened. Same thing happens with The Wizard. Though too many times these kids are put into serious danger, that no kid would escape. I find it incredibly hard to believe young kids aren't victim to trouble or abduction when they wander the streets aimlessly as runaways escaping kidnappers like they do it all the time.Every kid who saw this film came for the video game footage. Not the actual storyline. There are parts in the film where games are shown, saying they are on level three or something, when really, it's plain obvious to the character when they are on level. Any kid who was a huge fan of these games was most likely yelling in the theater "hey, he's not on level three," and frankly, if I was eight in 1989 I probably would've too.The film focuses too much on a senseless, congested storyline when it could be focusing on trying to construct more video game footage for the kids. If you told a child, around eight or nine years old, that this film as going to show five seconds of Super Mario Bros., they wouldn't bite. If you market the film like it centers around that game, then kids would bite. Nintendo could've banked from this a lot more had they simply gave kids what they wanted. It disappoints all around.Watching the end scene in 2011 doesn't really mean much now, because Super Mario Bros. 3 can now be bought for a few dollars off of Amazon, or at any retro-game used store. All I could think was how many kids screamed at the screen when they saw this come up so abruptly. That's all The Wizard is good for now. Memories, imagining, and nostalgia. Those three things only make for a paper-thin film.Starring: Fred Savage, Luke Edwards, Jenny Lewis, and Christian Slater. Directed by: Todd Holland.

So back in the 80's there was this clever little gadget known as the Nintendo entertainment system, which brought all of us young and old alike together for some head smashin, hockey playing, mushroom eating good times...There were several things attached to NES back then that would transform a bystander into a hard core fan. One of those things which held much importance at the time was the magazine Nintendo Power. I have seen everything from early Atari with my grandad to Ps3, but never was there anything like NES. For what seems like ten years it had the market cornered and somewhere in that time the execs at NES decided, smartly i might add, to make a film with the best child star actor of all time, Fred Savage! At some point during this time there was a Major rumbling about this movie in Nintendo Power. This is pre-internet here, we had to get together and pass the magazine around to read about this movie, and the kicker was the secret game to be introduced during the climax of the movie. All i can say is this was a total watershed moment in NES history, peoples heads nearly exploded seeing Super Mario 3 on the big screen at the end. It's a movie packed to the brim with one liners and heart. And what i mean by heart is they didn't have to make a movie so utterly depressing about video games. Fred Savage's brother has lost his twin sister who DROWN, and he just wants to go to "cccalifornia" to put her things back inside a dinosaur. Well this movie confronts all kinds of issues, its a time-capsule and like i said its got a deeper plot then you could imagine for a movie about Italion plumbers. But they did it. And thank god for that! Ten thumbs up.

Yes, this is the infamous 100 minute long Nintendo commercial, climaxing with the reveal of Super Mario Bros. 3, which was released a couple of months afterward. It also has time to fit in commercials for Hostess deserts and Universal Studios theme park. Yet, for a commercial, it's not half bad. I admit, I like it 99% based on misplaced nostalgia (I was 10 when the movie was released). Not only was it about Nintendo, it starred Fred Savage! I seriously didn't even remember Christian Slater was in it, nor Beau Bridges (who is terrible pretending he knows how to play Nintendo, flailing at the buttons as he does). And the girl who co-stars is Jenny Lewis, now one of today's greatest musicians, heading the band Rilo Kiley as well as having a fantastic solo career. I would never have recognized her. The story's not that bad. As far as feature length commercials go, it's quite a bit better than Mac & Me. youtube.com/watch?v=Ya0F83Bmbl4.