The Sorcerer’s Apprentice
Melbourne Central Hoyts, 21/09/2010
Status: Behind by 7 films
They say there’s only eight stories in all of story-telling and everything new is just a spin or a permutation on a theme. In many cases it’s not even a spin or permutation, just a rehashing, rip-off or straight up retelling. The Sorcerer’s Apprentice falls somewhere in the middle of all of that. It’s an adaptation of a segment from Fantasia, the 1940 Disney animation set to classical music. You know the one, where Mickey Mouse, in robes slightly too big for him and a blue pointy hat, bungles a cleaning-up spell and the mops and buckets threaten to take over the world. That bit actually happens in the 2010 live action (although CG drenched) version, with JAY BARUCHEL (Knocked Up, Fan Boys) playing the mouse and NICHOLAS CAGE playing the sorcerer (in this case Balthazar).
Balthazar and Dave (aka Mickey) have to right a thousand year old wrong and prevent evil sorcerers Morgana and Horvath (and a bunch of other nasties) from killing a bunch of folk. But Dave’s not ready - he’s only just found out that he’s the Prime Merlinian and hasn’t yet had enough training montages to master his powers. Will he ever be able to save the day? [SPOILER ALERT] Of course he will, this is a Disney movie!
The characters are bogged down in plot exposition but with almost completely no character development. Except of course, if you count two parallel and completely lame love stories, which I don’t. Some of the dialogue is really quite funny, and Cage and Baruchel have a nice little chemistry, but there’s little else going on except lots and lots of CG (just in case we forgot it was adapted from an animation).
