Who would have thought that you could create a two hour film based off of a five minute animated musical short? Sure enough, big-producer Jerry Bruckheimer has teamed up with Nick Cage to create a magical story very loosely based off 1940's "The Sorcerer's Apprentice", a short included in "Disney's Fantasia" that stared our favorite magical mouse. But does this new adventure capture the magic that Mickey did 70 years ago? Sadly that goal is next to impossible to achieve.
It's 740 A.D. and the wizard Merlin has trained three apprentices, Balthazar Blake (Cage), Veronica (Monica Bellucci), and the back-stabbing Maxim Horvath (Alfred Molina). Horvath betrays Merlin and his two apprentices and sides with the evil sorceress, Morgana le Fay (Alice Krige). A battle ensues between the five characters ultimately resulting in Merlin's death and Balthazar trapping Morgana in the Grimhold, which resembles a nesting doll. Before his death, Merlin gives Balthazar his dragon ring and instructs Baltahzar to seek out his successor who will be known as the Prime Merlinian because only that person could kill Morgana once and for all.
Balthazar searches for centuries for the Prime Merlinian. Along the way he defeats foes trying to release Morgana and eventually defeats Horvath, trapping them all in the doll. Finally Balthazar finds his magician and his name is Dave (Jay Baruchel) who is a physics wiz at New York University. Balthazar tells his story to Dave and the boy agrees to train with him and help defeat Morgana. But things will get complicated because Horvath escapes from his prison and he plans on bringing a few friends to help bring down the two heroes.
There are two things that "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" relys on and they are visual effects and action scenes. The CGI was impressive whether it was a dragon tearing up Chinatown or a steel eagle from the Chrysler Building coming to life, everything looked good. Next to that the movie was pretty much a non-stop action roller coaster that ranged from wizards hurling spells at each other to car chases through the streets of Manhattan. However, there must be more than just good visuals and action to make a film decent, the disappointing "Transformer 2" proved that statement.
Now about the connection to this film and the cartoon on which it is based. There is really no similarities between the two with the exception of one scene where Dave tries to uses mops and brooms to clean his apartment (while the music from "Fantasia" is played) which is an ode to the animated short. Besides that it puzzles me why the makers of the film bothered to say that it is based off the cartoon and not just say it is its own film. But as it turns out, that one scene was probably my favorite in the film.
The main problem with "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" is this, at this time in cinema history where "Harry Potter" rules the magic/wizard genre, no film can quite live up to the originality and greatness of the "Harry Potter" films. "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" did not bring anything new or original to the table and ends up being just another visually impressing popcorn film that will very quickly be forgotten. I give it one and a half stars out of four.
"The Sorcerer's Apprentice" has a running time of 110 minutes and is rated PG for fantasy action violence, some mild rude humor and brief language.
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