The greatest movie ever!

Excellent, smart action film.

It's a mild crowd pleaser for people who are exhausted by blockbusters.

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

I have come across who like this movie and some that don't so much, sometimes downright hate it even. As for me, I don't love or dislike Wizards. It is certainly an interesting movie, and is certainly better than Cool World, but as far as Bakshi's movies go I do much prefer Heavy Traffic and American Pop. Wizards' flaws have been covered a number of times in previous reviews, but I do share my agreement with some that have been brought up. The dialogue I don't think has been a general strength in Bakshi's movies but I did find it very corny here. The soundtrack also felt a little cheesy and perhaps too 70s, and the pacing is awkward, often feeling sluggish. I had mixed feelings on the story, it was a great idea and while simple was generally interesting and engaged me once I got over its strangeness. But I did have issues with the narration; not since Don Bluth's Rock a Doodle have I seen an animated movie with such an (I feel) unnecessary overuse of narration. However, the film does look wonderful, the characters do look too cartoony but I liked their rough-around-the-edges charm and the backgrounds and colours are stylish and beautiful. The characters while on the stereotypical side are at least likable and engaging, I did find myself rooting for Avatar. The voice acting is solid on the whole. Overall, decent film and underrated but too flawed for me to consider it a masterpiece. 6/10 Bethany Cox

I recalled seeing this film as a kid in the early eighties on one of the first VHS video recorders and loved it then. We hired it over the weekend and I must have watched it 4 or 5 times with my family and friends.20+ years later I came across it again when I was looking for a copy of Bakshi's Lord of the Rings for my son. Was it that good? I suppose technically its not that great, but it has a lovely unique premise and style combined with a certain charm. The main character Avatar is a gem of a creation, oozing empathy, realism and fatality - not bad for an animation feature.It might ramble at times, overloaded with supposition and then periods of slow activity and isolated "sketches" of events which do not seem to add much to the story. But there is still plenty of action and "big" battles to keep the kiddies happy with a fair few surprise events befalling the characters.The cons to the movie might put people off, but despite them I still thoroughly enjoyed this unique trip down memory lane which was made when animation was dying in Hollywood.

I first watched this film at the tender age of 9 and even then found it awfully sloppy and crude by animation or narrative standards. Bakshi claims that this movie is aimed at kids, and while I have to admit it's a lot more kid-friendly than something like COONSKIN or HEAVY TRAFFIC, there ain't a lot here for kids to like.Truly, this film doesn't hold up too well with a lot of unsuccessful blending of animation with rotoscoped footage, which, to be honest is more often just processed film than it is truly "rotoscoped", which would imply actual work went into it. The final battle scene is actually pretty hard to tell what in the Hades is going on with so many reused cells and ugly roto'd stock footage. I'm happy to see that his techniques in this area blended together much more beautifully in his next 3-4 films, the high point of which would be FIRE AND ICE.Too much of the script feels awfully first drafty. For instance the villains of the piece don't really seem to have much motivation for their desire to destroy the world beyond just the usual "oh, they're evil" mentality. Similarly, none of the heroes are likable or even the slightest bit interesting aside from the criminally underused Peace, the red uniform wearing android from the cover.However, I have to hand it to Bakshi for making up for his lack of resources with a lot of heart and a lot of love in rampant abundance. The most successful portions of this film are the side-vignettes showcasing the ridiculous villains. The scenes in "Skortch" are wonderfully gloomy and campy, complemented quite well by Andrew Belling's excellent (though at times quite dated) score. A lot of the vignettes are quite funny, though the success and amount of humor follows with the rest of the film's elements as being quite inconsistent.WIZARDS is a film with a lot of little things in it to appreciate even though the film as a whole is disjointed, cruddy, and rather tedious. I can say though that I'm glad I own it and watch it once every few years just because at the very least it's a great mood piece and has a much more personal & creative feel to it than most more recent animated features.

In a post-apocalyptic Earth there are two warring wizards--Avatar who is good and Blackwolf who is evil. Over the years Blackwolf amasses a huge army of mutants and ancient war weapons like guns and tanks and attacks Avatar and his peace-loving friends. Avatar seems totally unable to defeat him and Blackwolf may rule the world.To say this is weird is an understatement. After a needlessly plot heavy prologue it throws us right into a story with bad dialogue, unfunny comedy and unlikable characters. This is also WAY too violent for a PG rated film--the war scenes are incredibly bloody and graphic. And one fairy (Elinore) is way too underdressed for a "family" film. However the visuals are never dull. There's some incredible mixing of live action and animation and there's always something to look at it. Also the animation itself is just great. I can't say this was a good movie (the plot and characters are a little TOO strange) but I was never bored. This is perfect for older teenagers and adults looking for something different. NOT for kids despite the rating.