July 18, 2010 -- “The Sorcerer's Apprentice,” very loosely based on a segment of the 1940 film “Fantasia,” which, in turn was based on a poem by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, is a fairly standard film about mentoring and coming of age with a little bit of romance and a lot of special effects. It shows a fair amount of visual imagination, but not much imagination when it comes to story and dialogue.

Nicholas Cage stars as Balthazar, a centuries-old magician born in the days of King Arthur. Throughout his long life he has been looking for Merlin's successor, a magician powerful enough to destroy the evil Morgana (Alice Krige), Merlin's greatest rival, currently imprisoned in a container along with several other sorcerers. Balthazar finally finds Merlin's successor in a nerdy science student, Dave Stutler (played by Jay Baruchel of “She's Out of My League”) living in modern day New York City. Dave accidentally releases evil sorcerer Maxim Horvath (Alfred Molina of “Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time”) from the container and he sets about trying to release Morgana. Balthazar will have to teach Dave how to be a sorcerer so the both of them can stop Morgana from being released.

Dave has a hard time focusing on learning to be a sorcerer, however, when he becomes friends with Becky (Theresa Palmer of “The Grudge 2”) a beautiful young student at NYU. Balthazar has his own problems. Locked in the same prison with Morgana is his love, Vernoica (Monica Bellucci of “Don't Look Back”). He can't release her without also releasing Morgana, who is a threat to the entire world. Meanwhile, Horvath has found his own apprentice in Drake Stone (Toby Kebbell) who is entirely too modern for Horvath's taste.

The acting in this film is effective and the special effects are quite good. The pacing is good too. What is really lacking is a compelling story and good dialog. For instance, a lot could have been made about the vast age difference between some of the characters and the tremendous changes in culture and language, but little is done to take advantage of these kinds of story possibilities. Instead everyone acts and sounds quite modern, even if they've been locked in a bottle for a thousand years. This film rates a C+.

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Copyright © 2010 Robert Roten. All rights reserved.
Reproduced with the permission of the copyright holder.

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