The Sorcerer’s Apprentice

You know it better as a part of Disney’s Fantasia, but the story of The Sorcerer’s Apprentice was once a poem by Goethe. Anyway, they’ll be remembered far better than this film version, which is directed by Jon Turteltaub, who did the two National Treasure films.

The film dumps its exposition in the beginning, explaining how Horvath (Alfred Molina), apprentice to Merlin himself defected to the side of the evil Morgana le Fey, and how fellow apprentice Balthazar (Nicolas Cage) sealed the villains in a magical matryoshka doll. Years later, in contemporary Manhattan, young Dave (played as an adult by Jay Baruchel) strolls in the now-immortal Balthazar’s shop and accidentally frees Horvath. The two rivals seal themselves in a vase for exactly ten years and then, the plot progresses…

As for the rest of the film, Dave learns from the now-free Balthazar that he’s the “Prime Merlinian,” the chosen one who can thwart le Fey forever. His magic ring is his weapon against Horvath and le Fey’s other servants, but he has to use it properly or else a simple clean-up job becomes a big mess.

Having spent too long on exposition, I’ll cut to the chase. There’s quite a bit of cool CGI effects, including a fight with a dragon and the obligatory walking brooms sequence. Toby Kebbell, as Horvath’s own apprentice, is quite amusing.

But still, producer Jerry Bruckheimer’s not gonna match the cultural longevity of Pirates of the Caribbean with this one. Overall verdict is this: see this one if all you want is a fairly decent afternoon timewaster, for that’s all this is.