6.5 | / 10 |
Users | 4.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.0 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
Avatar is the kindly, eccentric sorcerer-ruler of Montagar, a rainbow paradise inhabited by elves and fairies. Avatar's evil brother Blackwolf dominates Scortch, a bleak land of goblins and wraiths. When the power-hungry Blackwolf attacks Montagar, Avatar, accompanied only by a spirited young woman and a courageous elf, must enter the darkness of Scortch to save his world.
Starring: Bob Holt, Jesse Welles, Mark Hamill, Richard Romanus, David ProvalAnimation | 100% |
Sci-Fi | Insignificant |
Fantasy | Insignificant |
Adventure | Insignificant |
Action | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
English: Dolby Digital Mono (192 kbps)
Spanish: Dolby Digital Mono
English SDH, French, Spanish
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A (locked)
Movie | 3.0 | |
Video | 3.5 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 3.0 | |
Overall | 3.0 |
Often called the “bad boy of animation,” director Ralph Bakshi hit his stride in the 1970s making what you might call anti-Disney films, animated features aimed squarely at adults. Fritz the Cat, his breakthrough Robert Crumb adaptation—filled with anthropomorphized animals having sex and doing drugs—was the first animated film to be slapped with an X rating by the MPAA. (“He’s X-rated and animated!” went one tagline.) Self-penned follow-up Heavy Traffic kept the sex and introduced viewers to Bakshi’s own sense of blacker-than-coal satirical humor, with horny post- apocalyptic men humping piles of garbage and one character even shooting God—yes, good old uppercase G-O-D—in the head. And, of course, there was the controversial, racially-charged Coonskin, which used just about every stereotype and caricature imaginable to offend, well, just about everyone. (Bakshi attempted to confront racism head-on by toying with its most heinous imagery—blackface—but many, including, famously, the Reverend Al Sharpton, didn’t get the joke.) In an unexpected career move, Bakshi then pitched 20th Century Fox a family-friendly fantasy film called War Wizards—later shortened to Wizards to avoid confusion with Star Wars—hoping to expand his success to a broader mainstream audience. The film has since become an animated cult classic, but it’s far from Bakshi’s best.
The other Middle Earth...
Warner Brothers released Bakshi's animated version of Lord of the Rings on Blu-ray in 2010,
and if you've seen that film, you'll have some idea of what to expect from 20th Century Fox's
treatment of Wizards. The fact is, Bakshi's films just don't have the fan base to financially
support a meticulous frame-by-frame restoration, so unlike Disney films from the same era—which are
miraculously revived in high definition—they're really going to show their age. This is certainly true for
Wizards' 1080p/AVC-encoded transfer, based on a source print that's, nicked, scratched, and
frequently salted and peppered with white and black specks. Aside from the print damage, though,
which could've been fixed with enough time and money, most of the picture's visual peculiarities—
what might unkindly be called defects—are actually problems with the original animation. The
brightness of static images flickers on occasion, colors fluctuate within their cells, and foreground
objects go unintentionally semi-transparent, allowing the backgrounds to be seen right through them.
Some of the composite shots, mixing Nazi propaganda and animated characters, are also incredibly
grainy and harsh. (There's an argument for Disney using DNR to clean up its films that goes
something like this: Animation is essentially a pen, paint, and paper medium that's not inherently
"filmic," so a true representation of the animator's craft would be to remove all grain from the image.
But that's a discussion for another time.) Still, this Blu-ray, in all other respects, is an appreciable jump
from the picture quality of the standard definition DVD. Outlines look sharper, edges are cleaner, and
color is surprisingly vivid. Black levels are solid as well, and contrast looks tight. Since it's unlikely that
Wizards will ever get a complete restorative overhaul, I'd say this release is definitely worth
the upgrade.
Note: For those of you who imported the U.K. release of the film last year, put out by Eureka Entertainment, it looks to me like this U.S. version features
the exact same transfer.
The only marked difference between this U.S. disc and the U.K. release from last year is that this one features a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround
track, whereas the the British edition only arrived with a lossless stereo mix. Not that the difference is substantive. The soundfield has been opened up in
only superficial ways. The music, for instance, is panned quietly into the rears, and occasionally the sound designers for this release have added a bit of
reverb in the surround channels, giving some depth to effects that are otherwise located entirely up front. If you were expecting all-new whiz-bang
cross-channel directionality, you may be disappointed. This is still very much a front-and-center kind of mix. But there's nothing wrong with that—it's
not like the original theatrical release had a multi-channel presentation—and this track succeeds in offering a relatively clean, clear presentation of the
film's audio. Some of the dialogue sounds slightly muffled and far away, and a few of the effects have a flat, lifeless quality, but there's really not much
to complain about here. Obviously, considering when the film was made, bass response is noticeably lacking and the high-end sounds a little brittle and
brash, but it is what is. Otherwise, Andrew Belling's synthesizer score sounds better than ever, and when Blackwolf rolls his armies into Montagar, the
porn-y sounding proto-funk music kicks in nicely. The disc also includes an English and Spanish Dolby Digital mono tracks, along with optional English
SDH, Spanish, and French subtitles.
Also note that the U.S. release lacks the score-only audio track that was included on the British edition.
Wizards hasn't withstood the test of time as well as Ralph Bakshi's earlier, edgier films— neither has its follow-up, an animated version of Lord of the Rings—but the movie still has plenty of fans, who love it for its odd-ball characters, dark humor, and visual make do with the budget we've been given peculiarities. Despite the age-related print damage, the film looks and sounds great on Blu-ray, and it comes with a decent selection of special features. The digibook packaging is sweet too. Recommended for animation fans!
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