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.

INCEPTION

It’s nice to see a big-budget ideas piece such as Inception do so well at the box office – even more heartening considering it’s neither a remake nor a sequel. Hopefully the success of films like Inception will create the impetus required for producers and Hollywood execs to stand behind projects which despite being both intelligent and fun don’t already have a ready-made audience. Whilst something like Pirates of the Caribbean 4 has a built-in audience, Inception has to rely on critical opinion, word of mouth press, repeat viewings and, of course that all engulfing advertising campaign for its impressive box-office figures. Whether you like Inception or not, (and if you don’t, you’re probably finding the realm of cinematic discussion quite lonely right now) you ought to be glad that it has been such an unqualified success, given the effect it will have on the industry as it moves forward. That’s not to say we should expect an influx of smart, well-made popcorn movies – there simply aren’t that many filmmakers at work in Hollywood on a level with Nolan – but it opens the door for more interesting projects to receive budgeting.

Development originally began on Inception in 2001, where it was pitched to Warner Bros as a heist movie set in the realm of dreams. The project was shelved for nine years as Nolan wanted to experience what it was like working on films with a larger scale (having only worked on dinky think-pieces like the all-too-slight Following and the marvellous Memento up until this point). We can view Batman Begins, The Prestige and The Dark Knight as practise pieces for this then: Nolan’s best made film yet.

The plot remains similar to the one pitched to Warner Brothers some nine years ago. Instead this time the heist involves not the stealing of ideas, but the planting of them inside somebody else’s head. Dom Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) is an extractor, who with the help of his team (which includes a rather svelte looking Joseph Gordon-Levitt) enters into a dream state with ‘the mark’ in order to extract – or in simpler terms, to steal – an idea out of their head. Extraction is becoming more and more difficult for Cobb whose dream-space is constantly being invaded by his subconscious representation of his dead wife, Mal (Marion Cotillard). We learn that authorities believed that he killed his wife and that Cobb had to flee the country leaving both his kids behind. We do not know the truth behind these accusations, but we see that Cobb’s subconscious is racked with guilt concerning his treatment of his wife.

Desperate for any way back to America to see his kids once more, Cobb accepts a job from Saito (Ken Watanabe) a business man intent on putting a stop to the stranglehold that the Fischer family are placing upon the energy industry and ending their hopes at establishing a monopoly. To do this Cobb and his team must pull of a seemingly impossible act of inception – that is, they must plant an idea in the head of the heir to the Fischer family business, Robert Fischer (played to slimy perfection by Cillian Murphy) and this idea must lead to him breaking up the family business. All this is made clear within the first 30 minutes of this 148 minute film and I am loath to give away anymore plot details. I believe the less one knows about the intricacies of Inception, the more one will be pleasantly surprised upon seeing it.

In order to pull off this act of inception, Cobb puts together a team consisting of Ellen Page (who coasts through this film in a disappointingly one-note performance) the architect who constructs the various dreamscapes, Tom Hardy (who is as wonderful as ever) the forger, who is capable of taking the form of others inside the dream-space and Dileep Rao, chemist-savant and van-driver extraordinaire. In combination with DiCaprio, Gordon-Levitt and Murphy you have a pretty damn impressive cast and that’s even without mentioning small roles from Michael Caine and Pete Postlethwaite. Leo proves worth his fee, bringing as he does the intensity that one associates with him post-Titanic. As we delve deeper into Cobb’s psyche and discover the psychological damage that dwells within him, we need to see at the same time this struggle reflected in Leo’s mannerisms and he brings it to this performance.

I’ve got to hand it to Hans Zimmer too, who has brought to the movie an absolutely masterful score. I thought Shutter Island’s score was over the top, but this takes it to a whole other level. Foghorns blast and strings weave in and out as a two-note motif repeats over and over and an enormous brass section completes the audio-assault. They’ve even roped in rock-god for hire Johnny Marr to play certain parts with a 12-string guitar. Wow. The song ‘Non, je ne regrette rien’ plays an important role in the film and has been slowed down and tweaked until it plays as a hulking great, bass-heavy audible behemoth on the score and it works perfectly.

But above and beyond the movie’s music and its stars, Inception works because it’s meticulously structured and it revolves around a series of interesting ideas. None of this would have worked had Nolan failed to establish any stakes. Saito’s aim to derail Fischer’s rival business is not the driving force of the film. Much more impetus is given to Cobb’s quest back home to his children. One of the problems of basing much of the action in the world of dreams is that dying in a dream does not constitute dying in reality, thus lowering the stakes significantly. Thankfully Nolan has a way around this, which prevents Inception from being a simple farce and gives the at times technically brilliant action sequences a sense of danger that they otherwise would not have. It appears as though over the years Nolan has thought of everything, leaving no room for plot-holes or anything of the sort. What we have is a tight, thoroughly plotted intriguing story that is capable of being enjoyed on many levels. If you wish to put your analytical hat on you can attempt to establish what is “real” in the film and what is simply Cobb’s dream (there’s some fun to be had in establishing when Cobb is wearing his wedding ring in relation to when his totem spins continuously or not). Or, like any good blockbuster, you can simply sit back and enjoy the action.