Movie Review — The Wizard

The Wizard was a fun, cute movie about a video game protege (Jimmy) and his half brother (Corey) alongside a new friend (Haley) running away to California to participate in a video game competition. Along the way, they have some memorable moments. Corey and Haley build a good dynamic, slowly building a slight crush towards each other, but also making decisions on how to proceed on their adventure. Jimmy has some great moments hustling older individuals for cash and I enjoyed his character development. He doesn’t say much, but you can see his dedication by the amount of time and effort he puts into the games and winning. At one point, he even declares his desire to keep going when Corey and Haley want to quit. When he was intimidated by Lucas and The Glove, I felt very anxious for him and upset that he didn’t defeat him right then and there.

There are a couple side stories in this movie that are cool, too. There’s a battle against the detective and Jimmy and Corey’s family. There’s the background story of Jennifer that hits the feels quite a bit. With these and the main story, I was definitely entertained for the 100 minutes of film. It was a little quirky and cheesy at times, but that comes with any kids movie.

7/10, great for an academic assignment