Please don't spend money on this.

Nice effects though.

A different way of telling a story

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

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".

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.

I have a soft spot for Ralph Bakshi's rock 'n roll family saga American Pop, but, really, he's not all that talented of an animator or filmmaker otherwise. I have still moderately enjoyed everything else I've seen by him. Until now, that is. Wizards is a disaster. It feels like about a quarter of an idea that was quickly drawn up and thrown into theaters. The quarter of an idea isn't a bad one, but it makes for an incredibly slapdash movie. Two wizards from the distant future, a good and evil twin brother, are at war. The evil wizard has discovered ancient films of Nazi Germany, and he inspires his mutant minions to go to war with the elves and fairies who live in the non-irradiated lands. The good wizard, along with a heroic elf, a reprogrammed evil robot and a big-tittied fairy set out to destroy the evil wizard's film projector. The character designs aren't half bad (especially the big-tittied fairy), but the animation is just dreadful. I'd recommend skipping this one.

I've been giving myself a crash course in the older works of animator Ralph Bakshi lately. "Wizards" was my next pick following his full length feature debut, "Fritz the Cat," which I found rather dated and disappointing. "Wizards" was an improvement over "Fritz," but I still found myself thinking that it probably would've made more of an impact on me if I'd seen it in a theatre in the late '70s after smoking a couple of joints.The story takes place a few million years in the future, after a nuclear holocaust has more or less destroyed humanity; the few humans that are left are now monstrous, radioactive mutants who dwell in a region called "Skortch." On the flip side, the "Good Lands" (i.e. the area unpolluted by fallout) is populated by fairies and elves, whom we're told are the true ancestors of humanity. The narration at the beginning of the film tells us that one special night long ago, twin wizards were born, one good (named "Avatar," wonder if Cameron had to pay Bakshi to use that name? Haha) and one evil (known as "Blackwulf"). The evil wizard has become leader of the mutants and has been carrying out regular attacks on the "Good Lands" over the years without much success. But now Blackwulf has introduced ancient technology (in the form of recovered tanks, guns, airplanes and Nazi propaganda films, which he uses to fire up his troops) to prepare for one final assault on the Good Lands, and his brother Avatar must come out of peaceful semi-retirement to battle him once and for all (with the aid of an elf warrior, a captured assassin robot, and a big-boobed, ditzy fairy who wears very little).The animation in "Wizards" is nice enough (though a little dated looking nowadays), the good guys are all Disney cute while Blackwulf and his mutant legions of froglike creatures are Frank Frazetta scary/ugly, which makes for an odd combination of styles. Battle scenes were apparently made by using actual WWII footage that was retouched and recolored to match the feel of the film, which makes those scenes even odder. Bakshi seems to be going for an "epic" scale here which at the time he wasn't quite able to do; not due to lack of talent, but lack of budget. Its slim run time of just about 80 minutes keeps things moving quickly enough that the viewer won't get bored.Too violent for a kid's movie and a little too weird and allegorical for the average grown up viewer, "Wizards" has some interesting ideas and visuals but isn't a must-see except for hardcore animation buffs.Extra trivia note, see if you can spot a pre-"Star Wars" Mark Hamill in a small voice part.