The one thing I've noticed coming out of this movie... the more movies Nicolas Cage does, the longer and weirder his wig gets.
You know I really, really didn't want to watch this.. being that this film is another testament to Disney deliberately cannibalizing material from it's golden years and turning it into sappy, uninspiring, pop movies for the annoying teen crowd. This 1 hour 30 minute film was of course based on a 5 minute segment of Fantasia and as much as I wanted to hate it... The Sorcerer's Apprentice was surprisingly not terrible.
So the film starts with Merlin who trained 3 sorcerers (Nicolas Cage, Alfred Molina and Monica "Titty-Mchottie" Bellucci) as his apprentices to fight against the evil witch Morgana from raising an undead army to take over the world. But there is betrayal and Merlin dies and bla la la bla bla, Nicolas Cage ends up with the sole responsibility to find and train the next Merlin to beat Morgana and save the world.
Now going back to where I said this film isn't terrible. Yeah, I was quite surprised actually, thought this was gonna suck ass through a straw. But with low expectations comes surprisingly entertaining movies. Through the whole film, though laden with grotesque attempts of humor and attempts at trying to make this film like the next Harry Potter, I found the film to be tolerable. It's still Disney crap but at least I wasn't bored nor pissed off.
My brother Nicolas Cage has come back from cinema hell baby!
Kick-Ass and this film proves that Nicolas Cage no longer sucks. His wig is still laughable but damn was he badass in this. He nailed the Balthazar that sort of does have the wisdom and stern nature of Yen Sid from the original Sorcerer's Apprentice segment but his character has been very much modified to fit a modern setting, yet he does not lose the flavor of an ancient wizard. Balthazar sort of reminds me of Mr. Miyagi from The Karate Kid, he's lovable, funny, unorthodox but if he wanted to kick your ass... you'd be so dead by now.
Cage was convincing in this part, entertaining throughout... if only he didn't have to interact with that whiny irritating S.O.B Jay Baruchel. He's a nerdy underdog character who is trust upon with special magic powers, you'd think that he'd be a character you could root for. Hell naw, far from it. This guy is incredibly whiny, he constantly complains through the whole movie about how, "Oh nooo, I don't wanna get involved with magic, no... I'm just a nerd kid." But then Ncolas Cage will do something cool and he goes, " Whoaaa," and then tags along and ends up whinning again.
And it so does not help that his voice is one of the most irritating, nasal voices in the history of nasal or voices. He is slowly becoming one of those third generation actors like Michael Cera who is constantly portraying the same character in every movie he gets. And the shit part is, you know he is a good actor if you saw him in Million Dollar Baby. Jay Baruchel just isn't cut out to carry a lead role. Maybe as a cartoon voice though because he was fantastic in
How To Train Your Dragon.
But the special effects and magic in this were cool. I like that they found a way to explain sorcery with a scientific reasoning, and between this and that other Harry Potter knock-off
Percy Jackson, Sorcerer's Apprentice is a whole lot more realistic. There is a scene in here where they transformed a fake dragon dance costume into a real dragon which was totally bad ass. They even had a part where the people operating the dragon is going, "WTF???" Oh and I gotta mention the climactic car chase scene in this which was typical Bruckheimer-Turteltaub work but still very effective.
And now I get to the inevitable part where Disney recreates it's Fantasia segment. If you don't know what I'm talking about.. fuck you and go kill yourself. But watch this first.
This iconic scene was recreated inside the film. And it's been getting a lot of heat from other movie critics, but I don't know... I kinda liked it in here. Certainly doesn't match up to the magic of the original Sorcerer's Apprentice but it was a very deserving homage.
Oh and one last thing I gotta add, I have no problem with product placement or song promotion in a film if it fits the story, but in The Sorcerer's Apprentice, they played OneRepublic over and over and over again. They even stopped the entire flow of the story and played Secrets from start to finish complete with lightning bolts striking Teresa Palmer.
So it isn't a perfect movie, heck it isn't a very good one either. But there is no way I can't tell someone that it is worthwhile to watch The Sorcerer's Apprentice in the theater with a full price admission.
RATING: 5/10
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