Went to the movies today to see The Sorcerer's Apprentice. This Disney film is taken from the Mickey Mouse scene in the film Fantasia, but it is essentially Harry Potter without the magic, the magic of imagination.
Nicholas Cage is Balthazar a 1300 year old sorcerer who has been keeping the world safe from evil while searching for the heir to the power of Merlin. One day, in NYC, a 10 year old boy wanders into his shop and we learn that this boy is the "prime Merlinian". Before you can say abracadabra, David has let loose Horvath (Alfred Molina) one of the world's most evil wizards and the chase is on.
Fast forward 10 years and David (Jay Baruchel) is grown up and attending NYU. he is a nerdy scientist who has a crush on a college DJ who he knew in fourth grade. Suddenly Balthazar and Horvath are back in is life and the battle for world domination begins.
The harry Potter films use the same set up, one boy who has the power to defeat all evil, but the films are made with imagination and heart. One feels that Harry Potter is truly awed by the magical world he in habits, yet the special effects never over shadow the human elements of the films.
In Apprentice the special effects are the film. Cage does his crazy man routine, Molina does his sinister best and Baruchel's job is to react to everything. It's only in the last quarter of the film where he gets to do more than complain about everything going on around him.
I loved the idea of taking the scene from Fantasia, where Mickey Mouse loses control of all the buckets and mops and developing that character of an apprentice into something more. I hoped Disney would do a good job with it. The film is well made and the money spent on the CGI was worth it, but the film has no real heart and lacks that extra magical touch that would have made it special.
At The Movie House rating ** 1/2 stars.
1 comment:
Just looking at the title and feel of this movie, I really think someone would have ot give me $100 to watch it. My time is worth something.
I don't know you but I have a feeling you shoul call your sister in law...Ask her how her father is doing
Post a Comment