MOVIE REVIEWS
The Sorcerer’s Apprentice
Walt Disney Pictures, producer Jerry Bruckheimer and director Jon Turteltaub re-tell a tale taken from the 1940’s Fantasia and give it a huge modern day twist.
In the original cartoon, Mickey is being trained by his master Yen Sid in the art of magic, which leads to the infamous broom scene, Sorcerer’s Apprentice begins with Balthazar Blake (Nicholas Cage) who learns the art of sorcery from his master Merlin. Balthazar is one of 3 students who learned under Merlin, but tragedy, love and betrayal falls upon him as the most powerful sorceress in the world Morgan le Fay aka Morgana causes destruction. To save everyone including her love Balthazar, Veronica uses a soul unison spell which fuses Morgana and Veronica together as Balthazar has no choice but to lock them both away in the Grimhold, a doll that seals one away, and for the next 1,000 years he continues the fight against the Morganians who work to free Morgana from the Grimhold, but one by one they fall.
Eventually a 10 yr old young boy walks into the store and Balthazar talks to him and hands him a ring, the ring shaped like a dragon comes to life and moves around the boys hands and attaches itself to the boy as a ring, Balthazar tells the boy he is the one he has been searching for, for a very long time. As he tells the boy to wait, Balthazar goes downstairs to find something for the boy and the boy plays with the ring giving him the ability to move things around, he accidently finds the grimhold and Horvath (Alfred Molina) is released from the prison of the doll. He tries to take the grimhold until eventually Balzathar shows up and locks himself and Horvath away in an urn. The boy runs away holding the grimhold and tossing it away in fear. The boy is scarred by this event. 10 yrs pass and the boy is now 20 years old, Dave Stutler (Jay Baruchel) is a science nerd but what he doesn’t know is that the spell that locked both Balthazar and Horvath is over and Horvath wants the grimhold, eventually Balthazar will need to train Dave in the skills of magic to help him fight the locked up Morganians and eventually Morgana herself.
The movie is a mix comedy and action made for everyone to watch. Nicholas Cage and Jay Baruchel make a funny on screen duo. The movie made a lot of silent mentions and homage to other movies including non Disney movies such as a Star Wars reference, Indiana Jones and a few others you have to see and catch for yourself. One of the scenes I was heavily anticipating in the movie was how the Broom scene from Fantasia would be brought to life, and it was done very well, it even has some added scene for comedy. Another scene that caught me by surprise when Balthazar and Hovan turn 2 cars into Ferraris for a chase scene that reminded me of “Gone in 60 seconds,” but eventually turned into a magical battle with an interesting end to it.
The characters who catch your attention the most are both the heroes Balthazar (Nicholas Cage), Dave (Jay Baruchel), and the two Morganian Hovan(Alfred Molina) and the silly Drake Stone (Toby Kebell)who is your silly new age magician who is full of himself even has a Magic: The Gathering standee of himself, but together, all 4 together really create a powerful movie.
Overall the movie completed its goal of creating something that catches both adults and kids. After the movie, it had me wanting to try to create Plasma Balls but sadly with no magic abilities I just looked like a fool. The movie kept you entertained and had a sort of “Magic” the only gripe with the whole thing Is the end, where it is Dave vs. Morgana and he is magically more powerful than her in a split second, it just seemed a bit too rushed to me and left me thinking wow that’s a big jump from not too long ago, but the power of science and magic can be a mystery
