Reviewed by Lamar Kukuk
7/18/10
Only in America! First,
someone gets the idea to create a feature-length version of the famous
(well, at least it was: when was the last time you heard the name
Fantasia
dropped outside of hard-core Disney fan circles?) Sorcerer's Apprentice
Mickey Mouse cartoon. And here's what you get: a Jerry Bruckheimer-produced
action-fantasy-comedy with Jay Baruchel as a college student called by
an ancient student of Merlin into the eternal magic struggle between good
and evil. Oh, and there's a scene with walking mops. The notion
that The Sorcerer's Apprentice is a remake/adaptation/ANYTHING of
a pre-existing property is utterly absurd, but the concept the typical
Bruckheimer army of writers has come up with is bursting at the seams with
potential, as is the terrific cast the producer has assembled. But
all parties only scratch the surface of that potential, producing a film
that is fine mild entertainment, but keeps its engine idling throughout
without ever really catching fire. If The Sorcerer's Apprentice
sounds good to you, you'll probably like it OK. But if not, it's
unlikely to win many converts to the world of dueling sorcerers.
We open with two rounds of
flashbacks. First, ancient sorcerer Merlin selected three students
with whom to share his magic talents. Balthazar (Nicolas Cage) and
Veronica (Monica Bellucci) were betrayed by Horvath (Alfred Molina), who
aligned himself with Morgana La Fay (Alice Krige). The resulting
carnage ended with all parties but Balthazar sealed in a multi-level nesting
doll called the Grimhold. Balthazar spent the next thousand years
searching for The Prime Merlinian (sadly none of the five credited writers
had a better name for it than that), who will command the full power of
Merlin, and finally found him in the person of young Dave Stutler
(Jake Cherry). But the resulting carnage ended with Balthazar and
a reanimated Horvath trapped in a magic vase for ten years while Dave is
assumed crazy and has to move away from his school and childhood crush
Becky (Peyton R. List). A decade later, Dave (Jay Baruchel) is a
lonely grad student who happens to bump into college DJ Becky (Teresa Palmer)
while giving a presentation to her physics class. Balthazar and Horvath
are released and resume their battle, with the former recruiting Dave as
his apprentice and the later aligning himself with celebrity magician Drake
Stone (Toby Kendell). Can Dave master his Melinian powers and save
the world without blowing his second chance with Becky? He'll have
to hurry, because Horvath is breaking into layer after layer of the Grimhold,
and at its center lies Morgana, with a world-destroying spell on the tip
of her tongue.
The Sorcerer's Apprentice
had
one of my favorite summer trailers, and this is the kind of movie I generally
like a lot. On the strength of my affection for the cast and genre,
it gets by but the sad truth is that nothing here is as good as it should
be. Perhaps it's the ridiculous notion that this is somehow a Fantasia
spin-off, relegating the action to a PG level that always seems to be holding
back. The double-flashback introduction compresses an insane amount
of exposition into just a few minutes (I'd bet money the material set in
Merlin's time was originally much longer, it feels heavily edited and marks
the only appearance of uncredited narrator Ian McShane), but from there
the pace is fairly leisurely. Despite a reported 150-million dollar
budget, Jon Turtletaub's action sequences feel over-edited and kinda cheap.
Exceptions are a nifty bit where a dragon float in a Chinatown parade is
transformed into the real thing, and a cool magical car chase where the
cars and even the dimension they're in keep changing. And there are
some cool creatures when various NYC landmarks come to life, like the Wall
Street bull statue and a giant steel eagle that emerges from the side of
a building.
Cage, Baruchel and Molina
should own these role because they're all perfectly cast, but instead all
three simply coast and hit relatively few high notes. I couldn't
help but think “This is gonna be good!” when Kendell's character is introduced
as a deluded Criss Angel-style celebrity, but the movie never makes anything
of it. The only performances that really sing come from Krige, who
is gloriously demonic in her small amount of screen time, and Palmer.
Movies like this mess up the Dave/Becky-style romance all the time because
by their very nature the girl's got to do all the heavy lifting to make
them believable. Palmer succeeds by making Becky seem like a really
pure, good spirit who would give someone below her social station a shot,
and also because the script is smart enough to make her affection more
of a burgeoning friendship before the adventure seals the deal.
I really liked the way Dave
uses his knowledge of physics to augment his magical powers. In the
end, he's not just a “chosen one”, but also somebody prevailing on courage
and smarts. In general, the climax does a nice job paying off everyone's
previously established limitations and making you pull for them to succeed.
What I definitely did not care for was the reason we're supposed to be
here: the lengthy, ridiculous sequence with the marching brooms messing
up a planned date between Dave and Becky. The effects are certainly
well-done, but it goes on and on, isn't funny and doesn't match the tone
of the rest of the movie at all. And, of course, having him greet
Becky at the door and mutter variations on “Sorry, I know I've been waiting
all my life for this date, but I'm in Fantasia now and I really
shouldn't tell you about it,” is the worst kind of romantic comedy contrivance.
I talk all the time here
about how certain genres just do it for certain people, and this sort of
“underdog saves the world with previously untapped powers” story is just
my kind of thing. The Sorcerer's Apprentice is at best a mediocre
run through these familiar paces, but it hits enough of its marks to get
the job done. Let's just hope this is the last Fantasia “adaptation”
Disney will unleash upon us: doing Lord of the Rings with
a bunch of dancing hippos is a BAD idea! |
