THE SORCERER'S APPRENTICE

Alongside Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (utterly forgettable) The Sorcerer’s Apprentice was one of Disney’s two tent pole releases this summer – both of which flopped. It sees an increasingly bedraggled Nicolas Cage (no, it’s not just the makeup) team up with bombastic producer Jerry Bruckheimer once more. The pair previously worked together on the National Treasure franchise, which unsuccessfully attempted to emulate the Indiana Jones series. Now, however, they’ve narrowed their focus unto the Sorcerer’s Apprentice segment found within Disney’s Fantasia and have expanded it, removed the Mouse and built a world around it. 

That’s the one segment that everybody seems to remember from Fantasia. Many cherish and adore it, but does this expanded version of it work and was Jerry Bruckheimer the right man for the job?

The simple answer to both questions is “no”. The film lacks in the subtly and genuine sense of terror that the original Disney segment mustered so effortlessly. Bruckheimer squeezes the $150 million budget for all it’s worth, but isn’t capable of conjuring anything other than a nice looking mess.

Cage plays Balthazar Blake a sorcerer who shuns the red cloak, blue hat look for something approaching Hobo-chic. After being imprisoned inside an urn for 1250 years, he awakens in modern-day New York to find himself re-embroiled in a battle between good and evil that has been raging throughout time. His arch-nemesis Maxim Horvath (Alfred Molina – who channels Oscar Wilde at his most menacing) is attempting to reawaken the Sorceress Morgana le Fay (Alice Krige) who in turn hopes to use her powers to destroy the world. At no point does the film attempt to establish why she’d want to do this. It’s clunky, tab A into slot B stuff.

Blake’s only ally in this battle is Mickey Mouse’s human avatar, Dave Stutler (played by Knocked Up’s Jay Baruchel) who he believes to be a descendent of Merlin himself – or a ‘prime Merlinian’, as he’s referred to at one point. Baruchel does a good job injecting his character with a kind of nerdy eagerness but is unable to create any real chemistry with co-star Nic Cage.

The money that was thrown at this film is evident. It looks good, the CGI is great (apart from a questionable looking CGI dragon) and the action whizzes by nicely. Unfortunately, there’s little to support the impressive visuals. The story manages to be both convoluted and predictable. There’s no sense of impending doom or catastrophe and none of these characters ever appear to be under real threat. It never once summons the sense of dread that the original Disney segment did within moments.

Then there’s the soppy romance between Baruchel and Teresa Palmer, who plays Rebecca Barnes, an icy blonde who Dave has had his eyes on ever since he was a little nipper. The film opens with a sequence where ten year old Dave hands Rebecca a piece of paper asking whether she wants to be his girlfriend, she hands the paper back, but alas! It’s caught by the wind and Dave is forced to give chase. Thus begins an overly elaborate chase sequence which ends with young Dave humiliating himself in front of the girl of his dreams (he pees his pants – there’s no coming back from that). The sequence occurs only because it’s necessary to move the plot forward. Most normal human-beings would choose to simply interact with their loved ones using their vocal chords and not put so much stock in a piece of paper, but there you are.

It’s endemic of the lengths that this film will go to crowbar in one action sequence after another instead of developing character. When Rebecca reveals what she wrote on that little slip of paper towards the end of the film, did director Jon Turteltaub really expect us to care? Palmer’s character is allowed to utter only clichés and she does so with all the conviction of a bored call-centre worker.

If the actors aren’t invested in this little money-spinner how are we supposed to be? The Sorcerer’s Apprentice got the kicking it deserved in the box office and I hope Bruckheimer scurried away with his tail between his legs. I hold out little hope for Pirates of the Caribbean 4.