The Sorcerer’s Apprentice
For years magicians have fought in the shadows, waiting for the Prime Merlin (?) to be born. Only he has the power to destroy the evil Sorceress whose existence threatens to destroy the world. Balthazar has searched the world for a thousand years, at last he has found the one. Will he be able to equip his new apprentice to fight the dangers amassing around him before they enact their revenge?
What I Liked:
This is a fun little tale told by the same team that brought us National Treasure. All in all it is a very competent film full of enough magic and gags to keep you entertained until the end. The main draw here is the spectacle, since Harry Potter we have been enjoying magic fights for years and each year they grow a bit more spectacular. Balthazar has been searching for the one who will finally be able to destroy the evil sorceress Morgan le Faye, he finds it in the unlikely dork, David Stutler who reluctantly becomes his apprentice. The combination of the two make a good team, Nicholas Cage (Balthazar) and Jay Baruchel (David) make a good pair for their characters. The chemistry and comedic timing of the two are very good and goes a long way in helping the story along. The two actors are nearly perfect for their roles as well, both of which turn in performances that are fun to watch. However what will hold your attention the most are the numerous visual effects. Dragons, large metal birds and plasma balls rule the day and the graphical elements work very well for most of these effects (though the dragon was a bit dodgy). The fights between magicians are fun to watch as people are thrown through the air, thrown into mirrors and throw fire around like baseballs. What I really enjoyed though was that the magic was never too over the top; the characters didn’t fly through the air by themselves, they didn’t flail around like Air Bender and overall they used magic almost like one would in real life, sparingly. I also enjoyed that the film was willing to take shots at itself, such as the “you don’t need to see my ID” Star Wars riff. Humor is lightly sprinkled throughout the film most of it used to pretty good effect preventing the film from getting to dark.
What I Didn’t Like:
In terms of technical problems the most noticeable are bad edits, a reverse shot that is obviously out of sync, a chase scene that should have been tighter and a few places where a shot was used outside of its intended timeline resulting in continuity errors. Problems like these may fly in a TV environment but they are terrible to see in a film; we are watching these things on gigantic walls after all. Where my main issues from the film arise is in its lack luster story telling. This is the second film from the house of Bruckheimer to come out with a voiced over prologue at the beginning and in both cases the films could have done without them. This film actually has two prologues, one for Balthazar and one for David, had there been a more cohesive vision for the film from the numerous writers both of these could have easily been done away with which would have made for a tighter script. The story telling is serviceable, putting enough plot and character on the screen to keep you entertained but not enough to involve you with the film. However plot holes are rife throughout the majority of the film, giving us implausible lapses in judgment or serious gross underestimations from our “genius heroes” The script never really takes any chances, the audience knows what is going to happen, and foreshadowing is literally one of the characters telling the other what will happen next. This leaves few surprises for the audience and results in a film that feels slower than it is. There is very little emotional impact from a film like this, we cannot be delighted when the guy gets the girl because there was little doubt that things would be different, we are not shocked with the final fight because we pretty much figured it all out an hour or so into the film.
In Conclusion:
While the whole film is entertaining and while there is nothing inherently horrible about the film it all feels like it’s been done before. However the story and the visuals are serviceable enough to entertain and that is all that most people will require from a film like this. It is there to amuse and it does so in a serviceable fashion. Overall I liked the film, much like I enjoyed the flawed National Treasure films, they are fun. Sure it lacked the whimsical charm it should have had and it retained almost no emotional impact, instead it is a paint by numbers film. As we know from when we were kids, painting by the numbers can give you a pretty picture, just not a very original one.
