Quartile rating: 6/10 · 1 rating
A boy and his brother run away from home and hitch cross-country, with help from a girl they meet, to compete in the ultimate video game championship.
The Wizard is essentially a feature-length Nintendo advertisement wrapped in a road-movie family drama, which gives it a curious nostalgic novelty — it showcases Super Mario Bros. 3 before its US release and features the infamous Power Glove moment. The plot is thin and formulaic, leaning heavily on clichés of the underdog-competition genre with underdeveloped emotional beats around the family trauma subplot. Acting is serviceable but unremarkable, with child performances that feel stilted and adult characters who are broadly drawn. Cinematography is competent TV-movie level at best. The ending delivers a crowd-pleasing tournament payoff that works on its own modest terms, earning it a slight bump above average for giving audiences the feel-good resolution they came for.