The latest take on the Arthurian legend, The Sorcerer's Apprentice , first takes us back to the 8th Century via a lumbering prologue. Merlin apparently had three apprentices, Balthazar (Nicolas Cage), Veronica (Monica Bellucci) and Horvath (Alfred Molina). Regrettably, the latter joined forces with Merlin's archrival, the evil sorceress Morgana (Alice Krige). Merlin got killed, but Balthazar managed to incarcerate Morgana and Horvath — and, unhappily, Veronica as well — in successive layers of the Grimhold, a device fashioned like a Russian nesting doll.
Merlin tells Balthazar that Morgana's evil plans — it's got to be the end of the world as we know it, at the very least, for the stakes to mean anything — can only be stopped by a child yet to be born called the Prime Merlinian.
As monikers go, “Prime Merlinian” is pretty lame, more suggestive of a line of longitude than the title of the Chosen One. Still, Balthazar spends several centuries dutifully searching for the regrettably-named One, with no luck, till young Dave blunders into his life. Grownup Dave (played by Jay Baruchel) is a Physics major, who bleats and whines about his unsuitability as a candidate to be Merlin's successor — and we tend to agree. But producer Jerry Bruckheimer and director Jon Turteltaub have other plans for the hapless Baruchel: trained he must be, in the ways of the master sorcerer.
Okay, so Yoda and Luke they are not, but Cage is surprisingly enjoyable as the manic mentor. It's after a long time that we're seeing Cage harness his off-kilter side with so much aplomb. Molina too has a great time, hamming it up as the dastardly sorcerer trying to release Morgana with the help of his own apprentice Drake (Toby Kebbell), styled along the lines of a punk rocker.
Homage is paid to Walt Disney's animated Fantasia that featured Mickey Mouse as a wizard's apprentice, especially in the scenes where a spell is cast on mops to clean on their own, with chaotic results. The live action update, however, lacks the whimsical charm of the Mickey Mouse sequence.
The senior sorcerers acquit themselves creditably — but in doing so, highlight the mediocrity of the juniors, who appear too wet behind the ears to deserve their sorcerer's stripes. The weakest link is the romantic subplot, Dave's geeky attempts to court Becky, his childhood crush grown into a babe with a fear of heights (Teresa Palmer).
For sure, The Sorcerer's Apprentice is not one of those offensive packages that assault our sensibilities under the guise of comic entertainment — a trailer of the upcoming film Grown Ups was a scary reminder of what this particular genre can look like — but neither is it as smart as it should be. While it has all the pieces in place for a really fantastical ride — magic and science, mad sorcerers and their unlikely apprentices, humour and special effects — very little goes beyond the blandly generic into the excitingly individualistic. It's a palatable-enough but lacklustre brew.
The Sorcerer's Apprentice
Genre: Fantasy/Family Entertainment
Cast: Nicolas Cage, Jay Baruchel, Alfred Molina, Teresa Palmer
Director: Jon Turteltaub
Storyline: Super-sorcerer Balthazar must train his nerdy apprentice in time to prevent evil sorceress Morgana from destroying the world.
Bottomline: Mild Magic: aka, how the dweeb saved the day.
