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Showing posts with label wizards. Show all posts
Showing posts with label wizards. Show all posts

Sunday, June 19, 2011

Wizards (1977)


A fantasy science fiction by Ralph Bakshi.
After nuclear bombs wipe out the world, mutants dwell in radiated areas and magical folk live in the good lands. A faery queen gives birth to 2 wizards, one good and one evil. The evil wizard goes to the mutant areas and builds an army while the good wizard travels the land helping people. After their mother dies, the wizards have a conflict to the death.
This is one of my favorite films. It's a toss-up between this and The Princess Bride. Both offer fantasy and adventure with lots of variety and epic quests. The animation in this mixes rotoscoping with regular cartoon style animation at will and it turns out for the better. The plot is epic and the characters are unforgettable. I'm rating this best because it's one of my favorites and my first review didn't do it justice at all.

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

wizards

this is an awesome film by my favorite animator, ralph bakshi. set in a fantasy world of magic, fairies and, of course, wizards, this movie follows the adventures of a typical D&D questing party on their way to beat the bad guy. what a surprise! along the way, they are waylaid by groups of mythical humanoids. the real deal is that the bad wizard sent out robot assassins to kill off all of the magical people in the world and one of these killers is captured by the good wizard and his buddies. the robot becomes their inept guide when the good wizard decides that his counterpart needs to be slain due to his warmongering.
I wouldn't trade the cartooning for a mile high stack of dragonball z, but there is a style of siluoette animation that is a real eyesore. it looks like film stock from old war movies was imposed on a smoky background in an effort to look psychedelic. it didn't work. the musical score sounds magical, with heart felt melodies for the heroes and upbeat marches, calls to battle and german nationalist music for the armies of evil. the voice casting fits the characters very well.
this is a definite must see, even if you have to pay for it!