Full cover of my official VHS videocassette of Kazaam (© Paul Michael Glaser/Touchstone
Pictures/Interscope Communications/PolyGram Filmed Entertainment/Buena Vista Pictures
Distribution – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review
purposes only)
My frequent visits lately to my mini-vault
of little-known/forgotten 1980s/1990s fantasy movies in VHS videocassette format
saw me on 1 May 2020 watching Kazaam.
Directed, co-produced, and written by none
other than Paul Michael Glaser (Dave Starsky in TV's popular cop show Starsky and Hutch), and released in 1996
by Buena Vista Pictures, a distribution company within Walt Disney Studios,
this fantasy/comedy movie stars NBA legend Shaquille O'Neal, but not as a
basketball player. Instead, he is a 5,000-year-old genie named Kazaam who is
accidentally released from his boombox (his original bottle broke so he took up
residence inside a discarded boombox, as genies do...) by Max, a 12-year-old
Brooklyn boy (played by Francis Capra, who went on to have a long, continuing career
in films and TV).
Not surprisingly, Max is somewhat startled
to discover that Kazaam will now grant him any three wishes that he wants, as
long as they do not involve making anyone fall in love with him or bringing
anyone back from the dead. Incidentally, I recall Robin Williams's genie
issuing the same conditions to Disney's Aladdin some years later – they clearly
belong to the same trade union...
Lots of slapstick madcap rap and claptrap
ensue (not really claptrap, but it scanned nicely with slapstick madcap
rap...), in which Kazaam stakes out a successful sideline as a club rapper, while
being trailed by a crook named Malik who realizes that Kazaam is a genie. Consequently,
Malik draws up a dastardly plan to ensnare Kazaam, in order to make the genie grant
him three wishes, but Malik's nefarious scheme does not turn out the way that he
had anticipated, that's for sure! All very zany, not to be taken even remotely
seriously, and, being Shaquille O'Neal, Kazaam manages to slam dunk Malik with
consummate ease. Not that I would expect anything less, even if others may have
forgiven him had he been a little out of practice after 5,000 years.
As for Kazaam's musical abilities, conversely:
let's just put it this way, a genie that tries his hand at rapping is likely to
make an awful djinn... (sorry, couldn't resist!!).
Click here
and here
to see a couple of hilarious trailers showcasing Kazaam's less than predictable
powers in this unequivocally 1990s fun film. Sadly, however, despite its nostalgic
charm and its very likeable, still-popular star, Kazaam
has not stood the test of time. Indeed, it may well have been long forgotten by
now, were it not for a truly extraordinary, tenacious mystery intimately associated
with this particular movie.
For Kazaam
is the film that apparently inspired an infamous example of the Mandela Effect,
i.e. a phenomenon whereby people claim to have seen something that not only can no
longer be found but in reality seemingly never existed to begin with. In this
instance, the claim concerns a supposed early 1990s movie available in
videocassette format and entitled Shazaam,
starring American comedian/actor Sinbad as the eponymous genie who grants wishes
to two young children. Numerous people over the years have vehemently claimed
to have seen this mysterious movie, even to have rented it from video shops, and can describe in detail various scenes from it – scenes that,
incidentally, do not correspond with any that are contained in Kazaam.
Yet no-one has ever produced a copy of Shazaam for official public scrutiny,
and some bewildered movie buffs have even suggested that its ostensible disappearance
from our world might actually be evidence for the existence of parallel universes! They speculate
that people who claim to have viewed Shazaam may have unknowingly crossed over from a parallel universe in which this movie
really does exist into our universe in which it does not exist. Sceptics, conversely,
opine rather more conservatively that this entire cinematic conundrum stems from
nothing more mystifying than false memories of the similarly-titled and themed Kazaam. Click here
and here
for a couple of detailed articles concerning this fascinating, ongoing controversy
from the film world. But if by any chance you do happen to own a copy of Shazaam, please let me review
it!
And to view a complete listing of all of my Shuker In MovieLand blog's other film reviews and articles (each one instantly accessible via a direct clickable link), please click HERE!
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