Review: The Sorcerer's Apprentice

[jimmy]

Directed by: John Turtletaub (National Treasure movies)
Starring: Nicholas Cage, Jay Baruchel, and Alfred Molina

Cage plays Balthazar, a Thousand, and some odd year old wizard guarding the tiny prison jar of the evil sorceress Morgan Lefey, while simultaneously looking for the modern day successor to history's greatest wizard; Merlin. With the resurection of his own ancient enemy played by Molina, Cage takes on a bumbling and nervous physics geek Baruchel as his apprentice as they try to save the world from evil.

This is your typical fun summer fare, complete with special effects and cheezy one liners. Its a fun movie, but probably one your not likely to remember in the long run. Once the movie opened and the credits roled I was was kind of dissapointed to see that the movie had a large number of credited writers (usually when you see a bunch of names, that's just the tip of the iceburg), which is usually a bad sign. In watching the movie you could almost tell that it was largely assembled in the cutting room, as much of the movie seems to be a jumble of mix and match scenes. While there was a fairly interesting plot device that could have offered a number of new challenges for our heroes, we are instead treated to by my count five battles between the protagonist and his arch nemesis. The constant repetition, while visually diverse, begins to feel tired by the end of the movie and ultimately anti-climatic by the time its over.

Turtletaub delivers something on par with his other pairings with Nicholas Cage, but doesn't seem to know what to do with Baruchel. As the titled apprentice of the movie he comes across as overly pathetic to such a point that the usual cute geek character becomes a little lost. Cage on the other hand is very likeable, albeit a bit flat, as the elder sorcerer. For a pleasant change he even employs a wig for once that isn't completely laughable.

2/4 - I'd give The Sorcerer's Apprentice a 2 out of 4. It doesn't fail in any major way aside from being a bit repetitive, but also doesn't overly impress either.