Word: bakshis
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...hand, Bozzetto's animators have shown none of the wretched excesses and artistic ineptitude of Ralph Bakshi, he of the X-rated films. At the same time, the Italians have avoided the sterile abstractions and moral sentimentality that afflict so much contemporary European animation. The underlying cheekiness of Bozzetto's work rescues it from the pretentiousness that has flawed so many well-meant efforts to demonstrate the range and capabilities of animation...
WIZARDS, the new animated feature by Ralph Bakshi (Fritz, the Cat), falls between a visionary epic and the conventional mayhem of Saturday-morning TV. Neither a kiddie cartoon nor an adult entertainment, the film is a whats it. Set in A.D. 2,000,000, it projects a world left over from a nuclear holocaust...
...land of Scortch, peopled by animalistic mutants, revives the lost art of war and attacks Montagar, a pastoral realm of elves and gentle wizards. "They have weapons and technology," an elf says of the attackers. "We only have love." Bakshi's visual effects at times are striking - stylized war footage superimposed on animated battles, pastel medievalism for Montagar, an updated, bombed-out Piranesi look for Scortch...
...makes a hash of his already soppy theme when the leaders of the warring realms meet for a climactic duel of good magic v. bad. Bakshi has the kindly wizard of Montagar pull out a Luger and drill the evil sorcerer of Scortch...
...Bakshi had any genuine skill as a satirist or draftsman, these spiritual descendants of the Uncle Remus characters might have become participants in the sort of Swiftian drama he apparently intended. There are hints here and there of a desire to demonstrate that black street styles are not stereotypes at all but put-ons. Such disguises can-sometimes-help individuals to get at least some of what they want with out permitting a hostile world to know that they are trying. Bakshi's sensibility is too vulgar for such an exercise. With a newspaper storm breaking around...