Wizards have been an essential element of fantasy movies since the dawn of the cinema. Essentially, you can’t hope to have a universe of dragons, trolls and adventurous men with names like “Numedor” without including a powerful wizard who is there to lend a magical hand when the going gets toughUnfortunately, not every wizard in film history has stepped up, and some Air Jordan 12s seem to flat out prefer cashing in their wizard pensions and spending the rest of their 2,000 year lifespan as the door greeter at Walmart than perform their expected dutiesFans of the Harry Potter series have uttered the phrase “Where the crap is Dumbledore during all of this?” more than once. He’s usually away on business when Harry and his friends are in imminent danger of attack, and the three of them are usually left to either figure out difficult riddles or single handedly fight humongous snakes, a giant troll, an army of gigantic spiders pretty much every horror imaginable. And when he says he’s away on business, you know he’s probably just hanging out in his apartment in his wizard underpants watching the wizarding equivalent of Frasier rerunsConsider Prisoner of Azkaban, where in order to save a friend he casually advises Hermione to use a “Time Turner” device, which lets you effortlessly go back in time and change any thing you wantWait, what? Why didn’t he go back in time and deal with it? Or better yet prevent all those things from happening with his wizard powers? Why not go back and prevent the birth of the wizard Antichrist, Voldemort? And in the 6th book, he actually dies. The man can travel through time, but he couldn’t prevent his own freaking death?
Skeletor (Masters of the Universe)
If you’re into nude men who like to ride around on giant cats then your entertainment options were pretty much limited to He Man and the Masters of the Universe. As a fan you know that Skeletor was possibly the baddest guy on this or any other planetHe was blue, wore nothing but some legwarmers, a mini skirt and a pair of suspenders, and had an entire mysterious magical arsenal at his command. He could fire lasers out of his eyes, teleport and shoot lightning out of his hands. But most convenient of all, was that he possessed the power of ‘remote viewing’ which enabled him to sit around in Snake Mountain and cackle at a vision of He Man and his fellow semi nude male friends, remarking to henchman Beast Man how He Man was ‘about to fall into’ a devious trap he’d set (devious in this case meaning “easily escapable”)Unfortunately, most of the time He Man escapes from Skeletor’s snares by either tricking him or overpowering him. Often the two would wind up dueling with their Power Swords, and He Man would usually win by cutting a rope that would cause a chandelier to land on Skeletor, binding his arms as he hopped up and down, cursing He Man and vowing revengeWhy Skeletor during these encounters would not rely on his eyeball lasers or finger lightning is not known. You can tell he’s evil because he laughs at his own jokes a lot and hams up every scene he’s in. Since he was portrayed by Academy Award winning actor Jeremy Irons, you’d think there would be some semblance of craft Air Jordan Spizike going on, and you would be wrongAnyway, Profion seems to be the most knowledgeable wizard in all the land the only real competition we notice in the movie is in the form of a highly inexperienced apprentice wizard named Marina, who throughout the film relies almost entirely on Marlon Wayans and some other guy to rescue her. Magically speaking, Profion could pretty Air Jordan 10s much have his way with everyone in the entire D universe and there isn’t a damn thing anyone could really do about itInstead, Profion spends the entire movie laughing at something he just said and looking out from his tower of doom at the destruction he has wrought while, again, cackling wildly at what a hoot the whole thing is to him. He also refuses to do any actual work and sends his lackey, Damodar, to chase the good guys, as if standing around and chewing all the scenery is a full time jobMerlin (Merlin’s Shop of Mystical Wonders)
As legend has it, Merlin is one of the greatest and most powerful wizards who has ever lived. Part human, part demon, he is a being of supreme skill and wisdom. Various writings have shown Merlin to have the power of prophecy, telepathy, necromancy, the ability to conjure realistic and terrifying illusions, and even an Obi Wan Kenobi like “force ghost” power to revisit the living after deathFor being the keeper of all magical knowledge in the world and for supposedly being all seeing and all knowing, the Merlin in the ’90s made for TV Merlin’s Shop of Mystical Wonders would seem not up to the task of working the graveyard Air Jordan Women Size shift at a 7 11, much less Air Jordan DMP raising the deadLacking a basic knowledge of economics, Merlin gives away items in his store free of charge to anyone who decides to stop in, and he relies exclusively on a puppet, uh, we mean dragon, named Gwendelin for his security system. When a street hoodlum foils Gwendelin and makes off with an evil toy monkey, Merlin recovers the item not via a location triangulation spell but by handing out ‘have you seen me?’ flyers bearing the monkey’s picture. Why not summon the monkey back using his powers of teleportation? Why not travel back in time and beef up his store’s security? Why not rain hellfire down upon the earth, destroying the monkey and most of the planet’s inhabitants? Unfortunately, we may never knowIf successful wizarding were baseball, Gargamel would be the White Sox. His only goal in life is to capture the Smurfs and since all Smurfs are roughly the size of squirrels and subsist almost entirely on a diet of Smurfberries, one would conclude that a basic knowledge of mousetraps would do the trickInstead, Gargamel, with the entire arsenal of potions from the wizarding world at his disposal, launches infuriatingly complicated Rube Goldbergian magical schemes, and completely fails every single timeBeing outsmarted by a Smurf is like being outsmarted by one of your shoes. The Smurfs each fulfill a specific function in their little communist utopia, such as being bashful, vain or gay. Take them out of that element and they have no idea how to cope outside of screaming their blue heads off to get Papa Smurf to rescue them. The fact that Papa Smurf usually does rescue them by using his own magical powers means that Papa Smurf is actually a far greater wizard than Gargamel. By extension this probably also means that one of your shoes is likely a far greater wizard than GargamelUlrich of Craggenmoor (Dragonslayer)
You might think it’s a little unfair to pick on a wizard who dies right at the beginning of his film, and we’d have to agree with you in most cases except this one. When Ulrich dies, no one remains to defeat the evil dragon, Valerian, except Ulrich’s doofy apprentice, Galen Bradwarden. The entire movie passes by before you find out Ulrich died on purpose so Galen could bring him back to life at the end, thus saving Ulrich from an entire movie’s worth of walking aroundThat’s right he’d rather die than exert himself a littleHere we’re not even discussing wizarding powers Ulrich is simply an extremely lazy human being. As a wizard, you’d think there would be an easier means other than causing one’s own death to span distances or time. Cryogenic freezing would be one. Carbonite would be another. As would turning one’s self into some kind of winged creature and gliding to wherever it is you’re goingAny decent wizard should have any number of these options at his fingertips, and by all accounts Ulrich was a more than decent wizard. Then again, if part of Ulrich’s decision to die was to get out of having to hang out with that dumbass Galen for the entire movie, we have an entirely new respect for himGandalf (The Lord of the Rings)
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