The Sorcerer’s Apprentice is released in the UK tomorrow and promises to make your summer more magical than ever before. Read on to find out if the it will fulfill the magical quota…..
The Sorcerer’s Apprentice is the latest movie between long-standing collaborators, Walt Disney Pictures and Jerry Bruckheimer films. This is the 2nd movie to be released by the two power-houses in 2010 with the first being Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. Where as Prince of Persia was based on a computer game, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice got its inspiration from a sequence in Disney’s Fantasia which was created back in 1940 – but does a short sequence lend itself to becoming a full length feature film?
Fantasia is possibly one of Walt Disney’s most famous movies as it showed off just how creative his team of artists really could be. I wonder if Walt ever thought that a live action movie could be spawned from one sequence in Fantasia? I guess we’ll never know but obviously someone at Disney thought it could be done. So, as if by magic, here is The Sorcerer’s Apprentice starring Nicolas Cage, Jay Baruchel, Alfred Molina, Teresa Palmer, Monica Bellucci, Toby Kebbell. It’s directed by Jon Turteltaub who worked with Cage, Bruckheimer and Disney previously on the National Treasure movies.
So what exactly is the movie about? Brooms washing floors for 90 minutes? Have a read of the synopsis and it’ll tell you a little more:
Walt Disney Studios, producer Jerry Bruckheimer and director Jon Turteltaub, the creators of the “National Treasure” franchise, present “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” — an innovative and epic comedy adventure about a sorcerer and his hapless apprentice who are swept into the center of an ancient conflict between good and evil.
Balthazar Blake (Nicolas Cage) is a master sorcerer in modern-day Manhattan trying to defend the city from his arch-nemesis, Maxim Horvath (Alfred Molina). Balthazar can’t do it alone, so he recruits Dave Stutler (Jay Baruchel), a seemingly average guy who demonstrates hidden potential, as his reluctant protégé. The sorcerer gives his unwilling accomplice a crash course in the art and science of magic, and together, these unlikely partners work to stop the forces of darkness. It’ll take all the courage Dave can muster to survive his training, save the city and get the girl as he becomes “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice.” The screenplay is by Matt Lopez and Doug Miro & Carlo Bernard from a screen story by Matt Lopez and Larry Konner & Mark Rosenthal.
The movie opens with a voice over to end all voice-overs. It goes on forever. I guess they had to do this though so that we knew what was going on, as the entire opening sequence is a montage of information (overload) so that we could then work out what was going on for the rest of the movie. Unfortunately the voice-over is so badly put together, from the get-go, you start to think that maybe paying £10 for this at the cinema could have been a mistake.
The opening sequence to the movie is actually very good and features Jake Cherry (as young Dave) trying to work out if the prettiest girl at school is interested in going out with him. Through various circumstances, Dave finds himself in an old antique shop where we get to see Sorcerer, Nicolas Cage for the first time. Then cue Alfred Molina and the fight is on using magic galore. This is where the CGI guys got to shine and thinking back on it, was probably my favourite part of the movie. The banter between Molina and Cage is great and watching them come up with different magical tricks to out-do one another was excellent. The issue here is, do you really want the best bit of the movie to be in the first 5 minutes?
So why was that the best bit? Well, it’s mainly because after that scene, 10 years pass and older Dave (now Jay Baruchel) turns up and just doesn’t suit the part whatsoever. He’s supposed to be a geeky kid who’s trying to find his place in the world but with silly dialogue, a bad screenplay and some silly actions like knuckle-bumps, it just seems all a bit poor.
I don’t know if it’s Baruchel’s fault. He was cast in the movie by some people who obviously thought he was perfect for the role. But they’re trying to make a movie funny when it doesn’t need to be. This leads me onto another point. Who is this movie aimed at? I’ve seen it and I still don’t know. Kids may love it for the silliness side of it but i think even kids may find some of the ‘comedy’ as unfunny as adults would.
There are however a few redeeming features. Both Alfred Molina and Toby Kebbell are excellent in every scene in which they appeared. The more I see of Kebbell, the more I realise how versatile an actor he is. I first saw him in Shane Meadows’ Dead Man’s Shoes which was one of the best films I’ve ever seen. Every time he appears in a movie, I know his performance will be excellent and he’s obviously caught the eye of Disney / Bruckheimer as he also appeared in Prince of Persia earlier this year.
The two leading ladies in the movie are Teresa Palmer and Monca Bellucci. Palmer plays Dave’s love interest and although she puts in an OK performance, she too has little to work with and the chemistry between her and Baruchel is completely unbelievable from the start. Bellucci is hardly in the movie which is a real shame as she’s such a great actress. For the one scene that she does appear in, she’s the excellent, beautiful, veteran actress that we’ve all come to know and love.
So, as you may have gathered, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice isn’t the greatest movie I’ve ever seen. The target audience is a little muddled and if I’d spent £10 on a ticket to see this at the cinema, I’d be a little disappointed. Some of the CGI scenes were excellent, mainly the car chases where you see a classic old fashioned car turn into a top of the range Mercedes, then go through a mirror to flip over into a clever ‘backward world’ (you’ll understand what I mean when you see it). The various nods to other films like Raiders of the Lost Ark (with Alfred Molina) were brilliant but must be in there for the adults as I don’t think a child would ever spot it. Also so make sure you stay to the end of the credits for a little nod to Fantasia and a possible sequel.
In a nutshell though, wait for the DVD!
