The Sorcerer’s Apprentice

Released July 14, 2010
Directed by Jon Turteltaub
Starring: Nicolas Cage, Jay Baruchel, Alfred Molina, Teresa Palmer, Monica Belluci

First viewed July 14, 2010
Jolly: 3.5/5 stars

Similar to the Pirates of the Caribbean blockbuster, this film got its inspiration from a classic piece of Disney ingenuity. Indeed the source material, if you haven’t already guessed it, is the Sorcerer’s Apprentice segment from Fantasia. But to turn that into a feature live action movie, an entirely new story has been created. And actually, the result is quite enjoyable.

We have Nicolas Cage as Balthazar Blake, one of Merlin’s three apprentices. The back story is a little weird to describe, but basically after Merlin was betrayed by Maxim Horvath (Molina,) Balthazar’s quest is to find Merlin’s replacement (aka Prime Merlinian) to help defeat the evil sorceress Morgana who is trapped in a nesting doll (aka Grimhold) with Balthazar’s love interest Veronica (Belluci).

Balthazar finally finds the Prime Merlinian in the 21st century - Dave Stutler (Jay Baruchel). Dave is a hesitant sorcerer’s apprentice, but slowly masters his skills. Meanwhile, Horvath starts to unleash other evil sorcerers on the path to unleashing Morgana and Dave is trying to build a relationship with his childhood crush Becky (Teresa Palmer).

This movie is definitely not one to be taken seriously, and although highly entertaining we should not expect a sequel. The highlight was definitely the nod to Fantasia (who can resist the enchanting musical score by Paul Dukas - bump ba bump ba bump badadada bump...). The lowlight (surprise, surprise) was Teresa Palmer’s bland and unimaginative performance. Overall, I give this movie 3.5 enchanted brooms out of five.