This movie is extremely different from what I was expecting, which is odd since my expectations were neither rigid nor conventional, so I should have been a tough audience to surprise. Ralph Bakshi, however, is full of surprises, and his creativity knows no bounds. Unfortunately, creativity sometimes needs some constraints in order to be understandable to those who are not the thinker, and Wizards lacks the lucidity it requires. The best example of this is how the film suggests an army in a fantasy world improves its performance simply by watching a projected film reel of Nazis to get pumped up, without any understanding of the Nazi party’s tenants. It’s a strange idea, but the way it is expressed visually makes it stranger: the reel isn’t projected onto any particular space, instead appearing behind the army as though the Nazi film filled the air and/or the soldiers in the fantasy world were becoming part of the film. This isn’t simply a matter of openness of interpretation – this is cinematically illegible, and it is typical of the rest of the movie, which seems to follow dream logic more than narrative logic and expects the audience to buy into many unexplained, confusing plot points. When this is combined with the bizarre characters, unsettling sexual imagery, and poorly executed climax, the result is a film that, in spite of its inspired artistry, has little substance and no coherence, making it regrettably difficult to tolerate.
