Best Internship Ever! - 'The Sorcerer's Apprentice' Review
Love him or hate him, Nicholas Cage has become one of the
most successful actors working in Hollywood today. It's no secret that he
doesn't exactly have the greatest track record of showing up in good movies,
but for some reason his movies are always huge, if not always exactly the best
thing in theaters. And having already given audiences the likes of Next, Knowing, the National Treasures, Ghost Rider, Bangkok Dangerous, and The Wicker Man, who are viewers to complain about Cage now starring as a
good magician holding the ancient forces of a evil prisoner in a magic doll?
The movie is the latest result of the inevitable re-union of Jerry Bruckheimer and Disney, neither of which were ever very likely to let the success of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies go un-followed, and while I don't count myself among Bruckheimer's biggest fans, I'll watch Nicholas Cage do anything. The man's brilliant.
Anyway, Cage stars as Balthazar Blake, a "master sorcerer living in modern day Manhattan" who, when you think about it, really couldn't be named anything else. He's been holding his nemesis Horvath (Alfred Molina), the evil witch Morgana Le Fay (Alice Krige), and the ancient forces of a evil captive in a magic doll for 1,300 years and searching for the chosen one to help him destroy them before they escape and destroy the world.
As well, along comes a 10-year-old kid named Dave, to the delight of the youngest members of the audience, chasing an errant love note into Balthazar's curiosity shop (what else?), where his world-saving potential is immediately recognized. Balthazar begins to train the older Dave (Jay Baruchel) in sorcery and wizardry so they can destroy the now-escaped Horvath before he clears the way to bring back to the legions of ancient evil and destroy the entire planet. So one can see the similarities between The Sorcerer's Apprentice and the Mickey Mouse segment from Fantasia with the bewitched brooms.
The special effects are outstanding and there are plenty of
exciting action sequences set in the colorful streets of New York City,
although the movie is freighted with far too much deadpan attempts at comedy, a
disgracefully underused Monica Bellucci - who has so few lines that it's a
wonder they spent the money to hire her - and a performance from Jay Baruchel
that is so overdone in the physics geek department that it nearly ruins some of
the most climactic scenes in the movie.
It's too bad to see Nicholas Cage doing the same thing he's done so many times before, and even over-exaggerating now, instead of widening his range of acting skills by presenting a character with hidden abilities beneath his bookworm exterior that the story demands. Having not done that, his character comes close to being simply annoying for a lot of the movie, and unconvincing when it's most important.
Ultimately, the movie is a big summer blockbuster and
nothing more. I've heard some people arguing that it tries to take itself too
seriously and thus becomes a bit of a joke, but when taken for the popcorn
entertainment that it is, I have to disagree. Baruchel is off his game and
Bellucci got the short end of the screen time stick, but Alfred Molina is in
top form, as always, as is Nicholas Cage, who throws his usual energy into the
role and invites viewers to have a good time with him and his hair. I certainly did.
It's essentially exactly what you would expect if you were to take the sad result of a combination of the Mickey Mouse tale from Fantasia with Jerry Bruckheimer's bottomless pockets and add the benefits of Nicholas Cage and Alfred Molina. It was directed by John Turtletaub, who made a name for himself starting in the early 90's with a series of successful films - 3 Ninjas, Cool Runnings, While You Were Sleeping, Phenomenon, and finally Instinct, with Anthony Hopkins, before hitting the bruckheimer-esque big-time with National Treasure in 2004. His latest effort certainly isn't a fantasy classic by any standards, but it's hardly a bad way to spend a couple hours on a lazy July afternoon.
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