The Sorcerer's Apprentice

Review by Anthony Morris

The first thing you notice about The Sorcerer's Apprentice is that there seems to have been a whole other film before it that Disney forgot to film.

But don't worry – they crammed it all into a super complicated and way-too-long prelude that goes on and on about Merlin and the relationship between his three apprentices and their relationship with the evil Morgana le Fay until you've lost all interest in any of them… 

At which point the movie starts in earnest and you get to learn about all this stuff all over again.

It is just one example of the wobbly scripting that hobbles what could have been a fun, if undemanding, film and instead leaves viewers with a collection of mis-matched puzzle pieces and not much of an idea how they're supposed to fit together.

On the plus side, once the story gets going The Sorcerer's Apprentice is fairly straightforward.

Merlin's sole surviving good apprentice Balthazar Blake (Nicolas Cage) has spent the last thousand years looking for someone who can finally defeat Le Fay’s evil. 

Unfortunately, when it turns out to be 10 year old  New Yorker Dave things go horribly wrong and Blake ends up trapped with his arch-enemy Horvath (Alfred Molina) for a decade.

Actually, even that part isn't all that straightforward, though when Blake is re-united with the now skittish 20 year old Dave (Jay Baruchel) things do settle down a bit as science nerd Dave gets some heavy-duty magical training while having to fend off various bad guys and try to strike up an unlikely relationship with Becky (Teresa Palmer).

But then things get incoherent again, and you are better off focusing on the decent performances from Cage and Baruchel. They are both cast firmly to type here, but they’re good at being crazy and nerdy respectively, and together they go a long way towards making this mess watchable.

But the story is such a mess than in the end nothing here sticks : while there seems to be a lot going on, it is hard to care about any of it.

And if you're not going to care, why bother at all?

2.5 out of 5

The Sorcerer's Apprentice
Australian release: 9th September, 2010
Official Site: The Sorcerer's Apprentice
Cast: Nicolas Cage, Jay Baruchel, Alfred Molina, Teresa Palmer, Monica Bellucci, Toby Kebbell
Director: Jon Turteltaub