Slick’s Nit-Picks: The Sorcerer’s Apprentice

Ah, remakes…you all know how I feel about remakes. But my mother asked to see this movie as part of her birth­day cel­e­bra­tion so it was inevitable that this was one I would put money on. Let’s not for­get that this par­tic­u­lar remake is based on part of the 1940 clas­sic, Fan­ta­sia. How­ever ridicu­lous that sounds, One should not count out The Sorcerer’s Appren­tice as it is a very enjoy­able film, espe­cially for fam­ily view­ing. While I wouldn’t call it a buddy movie, Dis­ney man­ages a rel­a­tively solid film by pair­ing Nic Cage and Jay Baruchel.

While con­sid­ered a remake of the short from Fan­ta­sia (Jay even recre­ates the scene and dresses sim­i­lar to Mickey Mouse) this film has very lit­tle to do with that short other than some screen homage. The story is steeped in magic that goes back to the days of Mer­lin and Camelot. Mer­lin had three appren­tices, Balt­hazar Blake (Nico­las Cage), Veron­ica (Mon­ica Bel­luci) and Maxim Hor­vath (Alfred Molina). The trio were like the Jus­tice League of their day, bat­tling Mor­gana le Fay together until Hor­vath for­gets the car­di­nal rule of friend­ship that we today know as “bros before hoes.” I don’t want to spoil the story much so I will fast for­ward. Balt­hazar is tasked with find­ing the Prime Mer­lin­ian, the only sor­cerer capa­ble of defeat­ing Mor­gana once and for all. Like most movies these days, the plot is com­plete Swiss cheese; how­ever, the ele­ments are pieced together in a way that keeps it from falling apart. Add the fact that you have the excel­lent Alfred Molina, who even if you have no idea how tal­ented he is you must remem­ber Doc­tor Octo­pus from Spidey 2, and you have the mak­ings of a story that will fas­ci­nate chil­dren and sat­isfy adults.

There is a good rea­son I focused on the per­for­mance of Molina in this flick. He is the only impor­tant char­ac­ter in the movie that truly stands on his own. He actu­ally has three side­kicks through­out the film but one has no lines (Gre­gory Woo), another is brought about just to be can­non fod­der (Nicole Ehinger) and the most influ­en­tial of the three (Drake Stone) is comic relief at best. Nico­las Cage and Jay Baruchel make the movie, but only because they are together. Hon­estly, they are per­fect for each other because both of them have zero range as actors. That may sound harsh and I hon­estly like both of them, but facts are facts, Nico­las Cage in this movie is the same guy he was in National Trea­sure (1 and 2), in Kick-Ass, in Know­ing. Hell, he’s the same guy he was in The Rock. Please remem­ber that this is com­ing from a fan of his work, but I just have to be real about it. The same goes for Jay Baruchel. He is the same guy in this movie that he was in She’s Out Of My League; he is clumsy, self-conscious and almost use­less around a pretty girl. That said he still gets the best line of the movie: “There are still parts of New York where a ner­vous break­down is known as hav­ing a Dave Stut­ler (his char­ac­ter)!” Yeah, you have to be there for the full effect but trust me, it’s messed up. Per­son­ally, the trekkie in me could have done with some more Borg Queen (Alice Krige) action and Mon­ica Bel­luci was look­ing too hot to have such a small amount of screen time but this is a fam­ily movie so I can­not always get what I want.

What would a film about magic be with­out some seri­ous mag­i­cal effects. Once again, Dis­ney deliv­ers. Drag­ons, hawks, the charg­ing bull in Bowl­ing Green and even a lit­tle DBZ action for the kids all come to life on screen. Cage once again gives Bat­man some homage with his “350-year old rawhide trench coat” that mag­i­cally pro­tected him from fire and small pro­jec­tiles. And who wouldn’t want to be able to turn their old run down car into a Mercedes-Benz? Over­all, it wasn’t the Matrix in terms of visual effects but it catered to it’s main demo­graphic audi­ence while main­tain­ing a decent degree of qual­ity. This is sadly more than we can ask for from movies these days.

The final ver­dict is if you have chil­dren, or you’re babysit­ting or you sim­ply can­not afford a good air con­di­tioner in this heat wave, The Sorcerer’s Appren­tice is a great way to kill about two hours and stay cool. It’s going to be a good hol­i­day video release and it will prob­a­bly become one of those movies you see once a year on what­ever XYZ net­work. Don’t leave until the cred­its are fin­ished and let’s hope Jay Baruchel gets tough in the inevitable sequel.

Handel

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