History Film / TheWizard

* DeathofaChild: Jimmy is traumatized by the death of his sister, Jennifer. [[spoiler: It's revealed that he wanted to travel to California to leave a photo of her at a spot special to them.]]

''The Wizard'' is a 1989 film starring Creator/FredSavage, Music/JennyLewis, Creator/ChristianSlater, and Creator/BeauBridges. It is about Jimmy, a young boy who suffers from a serious mental disorder reminiscent of HollywoodAutism after a traumatic incident. After Jimmy is put in an institution, Corey (Savage), one of his older brothers, breaks him out. They decide to run away to "[[UsefulNotes/{{California}} Cawwwifffohneeeyaaaa]]" together, as Jimmy is for some reason fixated on the place. They soon learn that [[IdiotSavant Jimmy is a godlike entity around video games]], which is noticed by Haley (Lewis). Haley convinces the brothers to enter Jimmy into a video game tournament in Los Angeles, and helps them grift gamers to pay for the trip. Along the way, they meet with some other kids that eerily seem to [[ParentalAbandonment lack parental supervision]].

[[caption-width-right:250: "[[TagLine It's more than a game… It's the chance of a lifetime.]]"]]

[[caption-width-right:250: [[TagLine"It's more than a game… It's the chance of a lifetime."]]]]

* CompetenceZone: The child characters, and only a few adults demonstrate competence, while many of the characters older than the children are either useless, or childish.

* MerchandiseDriven: It can give ''Film/MacAndMe'' a run for its (sponsors') money.

* MostWritersAreMale: Coupled with the above, some of the obligatory female companion's behavior seems unlikely for a girl of her age.

** Basically, the whole premise of playing for ''points'', which was already getting rather outdated by then; by 1989, how well one was doing at most of the games the children were shown playing would have been determined more by ''advancement'' than by the points.
*** Which has a weird backwards way of handling it in the movie: clearly, when Corey says "You got 50,000 points in Double Dragon?!" [[note]] Corey was talking to the ticketing agent for about two minutes, and to get a score that high in ''Double Dragon'' you'd have to basically beat the entire game. [[/note]], he's more impressed by how far Jimmy got in a game he had no experience with. And the big finale with ''Super Mario Bros. 3'' is stated to be for points, but given the fact that Jimmy gets a huge boost for getting the Warp Whistle and jumping forward to World 4, it's clear that they're playing for ''progress''. It's almost as though the script equated points with progress for the adults in the audience, since that's what they would know.

''The Wizard'' is a 1989 film starring Creator/FredSavage, Music/JennyLewis, Creator/ChristianSlater, and Beau Bridges. It is about Jimmy, a young boy who suffers from a serious mental disorder reminiscent of HollywoodAutism after a traumatic incident. After Jimmy is put in an institution, Corey (Savage), one of his older brothers, breaks him out. They decide to run away to "[[UsefulNotes/{{California}} Cawwwifffohneeeyaaaa]]" together, as Jimmy is for some reason fixated on the place. They soon learn that [[IdiotSavant Jimmy is a godlike entity around video games]], which is noticed by Haley (Lewis). Haley convinces the brothers to enter Jimmy into a video game tournament in Los Angeles, and helps them grift gamers to pay for the trip. Along the way, they meet with some other kids that eerily seem to [[ParentalAbandonment lack parental supervision]].

''The Wizard'' is a 1989 film starring Creator/FredSavage, Music/JennyLewis, Creator/ChristianSlater, and Beau Bridges. It is about Jimmy, a young boy who suffers from a serious mental disorder reminiscent of HollywoodAutism after a traumatic incident. After Jimmy is put in an institution, Corey (Savage), one of his older brothers, breaks him out. They decide to run away to "[[UsefulNotes/{{California}} Cawwwifffohneeeyaaaa]]" together, as Jimmy is for some reason fixated on the place. They soon learn that [[TheRainman Jimmy is a godlike entity around video games]], which is noticed by Haley (Lewis). Haley convinces the brothers to enter Jimmy into a video game tournament in Los Angeles, and helps them grift gamers to pay for the trip. Along the way, they meet with some other kids that eerily seem to [[ParentalAbandonment lack parental supervision]].

* HollywoodPsychology: Apparently going through a traumatic incident gives you [[TheRainman severe autism]] or [[AmbiguousDisorder something like it]]. ''Yeah''.

* TheRainMan: Jimmy, the titular Wizard, is an InstantExpert in every video game he plays. He's even able to locate the [[GuideDangIt World 1 Warp Whistle]] in ''VideoGame/SuperMarioBros3'' on his ''first try'' in the middle of an intense competition.

* AdorablyPrecociousKid: Corey and Haley both behave as if they're full-grown adults trapped in the bodies of teenagers. In fact, they act ''more'' mature than most of the adults they encounter.

* GettingCrapPastTheRadar:
** This movie contains a surprising amount of profanity for a movie promoting ''Nintendo.'' At one point, after intentionally ramming into his car, Sam calls Putnam "chicken shit."
** Then there's the infamous "HE TOUCHED MY BREAST!" line.
** When Haley defiantly states that there's no way she will kiss a boy, Corey suggests, [[GirlOnGirlIsHot "A girl, maybe?"]]
** Haley mentions that her mother used to be a showgirl with "[[ShesGotLegs great legs]]" and claims to have inherited them, even asking Corey his opinion of them.
** In response to Lucas' infamous "power glove" line, Corey says, "Yeah, well, uh, just keep your [[UnusualEuphemism Power Gloves]] off her, pal, huh?"

** Mr. Bateman, (Jimmy, Corey & Nick's stepfather; initially). When he mentions having hired Putnam to find Jimmy, Sam asks "What about Corey?" To which Mr. Bateman replies, "Well, Corey ''wants'' to run away, doesn't he? Even if we brought him back, would it do any good?"

But none of this is what the movie is well-known for. The film is a fairly blatant MerchandiseDriven affair, made to sell Nintendo products and the Universal Studios tour. In fact, the film's appeal was that it had a sneak peek of ''VideoGame/SuperMarioBros3'' (for North America; it had been available in Japan for more than a year).

''The Wizard'' is a 1989 film starring Creator/FredSavage, Music/JennyLewis, Creator/ChristianSlater, and Beau Bridges. It is about Jimmy, a young boy who suffers from a serious mental disorder reminiscent of HollywoodAutism after a traumatic incident. After Jimmy is put in an institution, Corey (Savage), one of his older brothers, breaks him out. They decide to run away to "[[UsefulNotes/{{California}} Cawwwifffohneeeyaaaa]]" together, as Jimmy is for some reason fixated on the place. They soon learn that [[TheRainman Jimmy is a]] [[DisabilitySuperpower godlike entity around video games]], which is noticed by Haley (Lewis). Haley convinces the brothers to enter Jimmy into a video game tournament in Los Angeles, and helps them grift gamers to pay for the trip. Along the way, they meet with some other kids that eerily seem to [[ParentalAbandonment lack parental supervision]].

* BigBad: Putnam, the creepy, unscrupulous private investigator[[note]]Or bounty hunter; it's not clear which.[[/note]], who is mostly motivated by the money and even resorts to such underhanded tactics as having a tow truck driver take Jimmy's dad's pickup away and finding Haley's address to kidnap Jimmy.

** When the contents of Jimmy's lunchbox are revealed, which even his family didn't know what was kept in it. [[spoiler:It's pictures of his twin sister.]]

* ChekovsGun: The hat Corey puts on Jimmy, which gets stolen by the gang they bet against. Sam and Nick come across the one who takes the hat and figures he had seen the kids. And the hat was stolen shortly after they meet Lucas, who happens to be at the same location and tells them where they are heading.

Meanwhile, the concerned mother of the runaway kids hires a sleazy private detective named Putnam to track them down. Also trying to get to them are their father Sam (Bridges) and eldest brother Nick (Slater), resulting in rivalry between them and Putnam.

* PaedoHunt: PlayedForLaughs when Haley yells "He touched my breast!" to stop Putnam from taking Jimmy.

* PeedoHunt: PlayedForLaughs when Haley yells "He touched my breast!" to stop Putnam from taking Jimmy.

* PeedoHunt: PlayedForLaughs when Haley yells "He touched my breast!" to stop Putnum from taking Jimmy.
* PopTheTires: Putnum, the bounty hunter after the kids, takes out the dad's tires to disable his truck.

* PedoHunt: PlayedForLaughs in the infamous "He touched my breast!" scene.

*** Which has a weird backwards way of handling it in the movie: clearly, when Corey says "You got 50,000 points in Double Dragon?!" [[note]] Corey was talking to the ticketing agent for about two minutes, and to get a score that in high ''Double Dragon'' you'd have to basically beat the entire game. [[/note]], he's more impressed by how far Jimmy got in a game he had no experience with. And the big finale with ''Super Mario Bros. 3'' is stated to be for points, but given the fact that Jimmy gets a huge boost for getting the Warp Whistle and jumping forward to World 4, it's clear that they're playing for ''progress''. It's almost as though the script equated points with progress for the adults in the audience, since that's what they would know.

*** Which has a weird backwards way of handling it in the movie: clearly, when Corey says "You got 5,000 points in Double Dragon?!", he's more impressed by how far Jimmy got in a game he had no experience with. And the big finale with ''Super Mario Bros. 3'' is stated to be for points, but given the fact that Jimmy gets a huge boost for getting the Warp Whistle and jumping forward to World 4, it's clear that they're playing for ''progress''. It's almost as though the script equated points with progress for the adults in the audience, since that's what they would know.

[[Music/Tommy Sound familiar?]]

[[Film/RainMan Sound familiar?]]

* RecycledInSpace: The movie is essentially ''Film/RainMan'' [-WITH NINTENDO VIDEO GAMES!-] The similarities to the 1988 film were so striking that the ''Washington Post'' outright accused ''The Wizard'' of plagiarism.