Nicholas Cage stars in this live adaption of the old Disney classic of the same name. The original, “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice”, was a featured segment in the 1940’s film Fantasia that starred Mickey Mouse as the apprentice to the legendary wizard Merlin. Besides apprenticeship there is not much similarity between the animated feature and the loosely based live adaption.
This 2010 version opens up and introduces the audience to three sorcerers that were trained by Merlin: Balthazar Blake (Nicholas Cage), Veronica (Monica Belluci) and Maxim Horvath (Alfred Molina). All is well between this trio of sorcerers until in an act of betrayal Horvath kills Merlin and swears allegiance to Merlin’s nemesis, Morgana. In a quick decision Balthazar traps Horvath and Morgana, who also happens to be fused inside of Veronica, into a little nesting doll called the grimhold. It is from then on Balthazar promises to find the apprentice that would be Merlin’s successor, known as the Prime Merlinian, who will destroy Morgana and free Veronica. This brings us up to the present day introducing us to the so-called Prime Merlinian named Dave played by Jay Baruchel (She’s Out of My League).
The film is very simplistic in its approach and the filmmakers make it clear who the good guys and bad guys are. Nicholas Cage is adequate as the eccentric mentor, Jay Baruchel is believable as a nerdy NYU student, Molina also plays the textbook villain minus a crooked mustache, Teresa Palmer does pretty well as Dave’s love interest Becky Barnes, and Belluci is barely in the film. Everybody is pretty much convincing as their characters, but we have all seen these actors in similar roles before. Cage plays eccentric well off screen and on, Baruchel has played a nerdy type in more than several gigs, and Molina was a memorable villain as Doc Ock in Spider-Man 2. The characters are clear cut and the story follows the same simplistic theme.
There is not a lot to get about this film and I doubt you will get lost following the movie unless you are under ten years old. Basically it is good sorcerer versus bad sorcerer or else it is the end of the world. It is not anything new but it does have some highlights along the way. There were a couple of references to the old cartoon, most notably with a cleaning sequence and if you stick around after the credits you will see another. Another highlight that presented some comic relief was an evil Criss Angel/Mindfreak sorcerer named Drake Stone played by Toby Kebbel (Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time). But there was nothing truly great to see and I also mean that literally.
The effects in the film were decent enough but there were a few times I thought it could have been touched up better. A few things almost stuck out to me but I stretched my imagination a tad bit more and filtered it out enough to enjoy. A cool visual scene was an electric-musical cage sequence that Dave uses to impress Becky. And if there is any nerds out there that saw that take notes because there is hope through science!
Overall though, I thought the movie was just okay. It was a pretty family friendly popcorn movie and if you are a family with young ones this might be one to get everyone out of the house. I can’t guarantee the level of your pleasure in it, but the kids will have fun. But if you are a just group of friends looking for a movie I would say save your money and wait for it on DVD.
