"The Twilight Zone" Azoth the Avenger Is a Friend of Mine (TV Episode 2002) Poster

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5/10
It's okay...but the ending narration is a bit sappy.
planktonrules14 February 2022
A kid lives in a home with a monster. The monster is his father...and angry, abusive jerk who controls the family through violence and intimidation. The boy has had enough and makes a wish that his comicbook hero, Azoth the Avenger, comes to protect him.

The idea of this episode isn't bad. But the ending narration is pretty sappy and I can't help but think that this should have been better...and with more of a twist.
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6/10
"Your comics leave out the best part."
classicsoncall28 February 2023
Warning: Spoilers
I had to chuckle when I saw that Azoth the Avenger was none other than Elaine's boyfriend Puddy from the 'Seinfeld' series. It was hard to take him seriously after that, especially in the warrior get up the film makers dressed him up in. Even more cringeworthy was when Craig Hansen's (Rory Culkin) dad (Peter LaCroix) actually put a good sized beat down on Azoth. What the heck was that about? Here the ancient warrior materializes to save the young boy from an awful home life and winds up getting pummeled. There should have been another way to serve up the lesson that Craig Hansen had to solve his own problems, instead his hero was cut down to size by an angry alcoholic. And what's with host Forest Whitaker describing Craig's experience in 'The Zone'? Rod Serling would not have approved.
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4/10
"The Zone"? "The Zone"?!
gizmomogwai29 January 2020
Someone get scriptwriter Brent V. Friedman and host Forest Whitaker a tape of the actual Serling show. Its name is The Twilight Zone, not The Zone. Say it with me: The Twilight Zone.

"Azoth the Avenger Is a Friend of Mine" is an episode plagued with the horrifically bad acting that characterizes the 2000s revival of The Twilight Zone (again, not The Zone). Particularly, Patrick Warburton is awful, though in all fairness, he wasn't given much to work with- lines like "I sense we're kindred spirits" come out as laughably ridiculous. Rory Culkin is largely passable, but is monotonous, finding that tone of voice to use throughout the whole episode that doesn't make you cringe, but he never acts afraid, or brave, or surprised, or anything. The characters in this episode react completely incomprehensibly- the mother character tends to Azoth's wounds? In the early 2000s, she would have called the police. "A leather hanging out with a 12-year-old boy," as the dad puts it, would have raised very serious concerns about what this man was doing to the boy.

The new intro to the noughties revival also doesn't do justice to the original Twilight Zone (again, not The Zone, still can't get over that) - too flashy, not unnerving at all, with a similarly splashy title logo.
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4/10
Not Much to Talk About
Hitchcoc7 July 2017
Warning: Spoilers
One of the Culkin boys is having father trouble. So he call in the guy from Rules of Engagement who is a fierce fantasy warrior. There are scenes where the two pretend to act and then the father has to face this guy. And he fails. And then some other stuff happens. The boy learns a lesson. He turns evil Dad into an action figure when the guy tries to kill his family. The whole thing is so idiotic as to be laughable. I'm assuming that somebody ran out of ideas for a while. This is the result. Believe it or not, there was some potential for a plot here. Didn't happen.
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1/10
Forest The Ruiner
talllwoood1319 June 2023
Warning: Spoilers
This is a rejected kids movie or something at best. Not a twilight zone episode. Goosebumps, Are You Afraid Of The Dark or similar this would be. Rod Serling would have laughed the writer(s) out of the room over pitching this episode. The warrior that the kid befriends looks like a drunk washed up wrestler or someone outside a home depot who builds a mean deck and works over time when the husband is out of town.. It's as if the mom wrote this story to cope with some abuse in her life. The child actor seemed like a dollar store Macaulay Culkin.

What surprised the heck out of me was Joe Swanson from Family Guy is Azoth the Avenger.. yeah seriously.

I will give this some credit at least Azoth didn't just beat the dad up and fall in love with the kids mom which maybe 5 or so years ago she would have been quite pretty. Then that would be just insulting for how obvious the story was. At least they took the high road there. Forest Whittaker and saying just "the zone" is inexcusable.
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8/10
Nice & Interesting Story
danieln-155255 August 2020
Adorable child-actor. Interesting overall and deep ending.
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