Movie #52 - The Wizard

"They're on a cross-country adventure to the world's greatest video championship. It's more than a game...it's the chance of a lifetime."

Quite a lengthy tagline... really defeats the purpose of having one. However, it says exactly what happens in this movie, in a nutshell.

This movie represents the peak of popularity of the Nintendo Entertainment System or NES for short. In 1989, almost every household with a child / pre-teen / teenager had a NES system and about 15-20 games. 1989 also represented the point at which NES decided to expand its market share and release other gaming systems such as SNES and Gameboy.

However, 1989 also represented the launch of one of the most influential games of that era - Super Mario Bros. 3. What better way to do it then to cast Fred Savage in a crappy movie.

I was one of the lucky few back in 1989 to watch this film with my mother in theatres. Not only was I stoked as a movie fan to see Fred Savage on the big screen (at the time he was the star of the Wonder Years on the small screen), but this movie was about videogames - you cannot go wrong with that. I believe I was in awe at the number of games portrayed in this film and I do believe my parents bought the NES Power Glove which made a debut in this movie shortly afterwards - possibly for my birthday.

The games are the real bonus to this movie... as the acting and the plot twists are nothing to remember. I did laugh after seeing this movie after 19 years on television when I saw Christian Slater in the cast along with Beau Bridges. Both are highly recognized actors and I cannot see why they put themselves in this movie - if not to probably get first dibs on the pre-release of SMB3.

Super Mario Bros. 3 represents all that is good for NES and for videogames. It ranks up there in pivotal games of my generation. Everyone knows what a warp whistle is or a Tanooki suit, let alone a frog suit or a fire flower... all thanks to this game. Not to mention, the musical score, which is one of those songs that after hours of game play, becomes emblazoned in one's mind to repeat while you sleep. No game can match that level of influence and at the same time, no game could've provided more hours of fun during the time of its release.

So overall, the only things to enjoy here are the movie debut of SMB3 and a funny, uncredited cameo of Tobey MacGuire... see if you can find him - it was a challenge, but he's in this film somewhere.