'Sorcerer's Apprentice' can't conjure the magic
Look, if you're making a feature film based on a classic Walt Disney animated short, the first obligation you have is to make your movie as good as the short. Right?
That doesn't happen in Jon Turteltaub's "The Sorcerer's Apprentice," a generic, special-effects-driven hodgepodge of clichés and conventions.
Disney's groundbreaking 1940 musical "Fantasia" featured Mickey Mouse as a sorcerer's apprentice, a novice who uses his limited powers to animate brooms, mops and buckets to clean up the den, a job he was assigned to do.
Turteltaub's movie doesn't exactly pay homage to its source. It pays lip service.
The effects scene involving renegade mops, brooms and buckets going crazy pops up in "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" almost as a begrudging obligation, a kiss-off.
Dave the apprentice (played by Jay Baruchel) loses control of his janitorial tools, making a mess of things until miffed sorcerer Balthazar (Nicolas Cage) arrives to set things right.
That's it? Yep.
The rest of "Sorcerer's Apprentice" is a downright silly comic fantasy about a malevolent sorcerer named Horwath (Alfred Molina), Balthazar's well-dressed nemesis who escapes from a magic Russian nesting doll.
Horwath intends to unleash another doll-incarcerated wizard, the evil Morgana Le Fay (Alice Krige) who wants to conquer the world.
The only person who can stop Le Fay is "the prime Merlinian," a mystery descendant of King Arthur's Merlin, the wizard who trapped her in the doll, guarded for centuries by Merlin's student, Balthazar.
Nebbish NYU student Dave Stutler (Baruchel) hardly seems the prime Merlinian, but of course, he is. He would rather chase after his grown-up grade-school crush Becky (a cute but forgettable Teresa Palmer) than learn from Balthazar how to stop Horwath from releasing Le Fay.
Right here, "Sorcerer's Apprentice" loses the upscale "Harry Potter" crowd.
Turteltaub fills his movie with diverting spells and effects, with wizards tossing fireballs and "plasma blasts" at each other with terrible aim.
The movie serves up obligatory conventional car chase sequences, distinguished only by Balthazar's antique roadster (a Bentley?) which turns into a hot sports car when it needs to go really fast.
There are elements in this movie that recall "Transformers" and "Ghostbusters," and they only remind us of how utterly unsurprising "Sorcerer's Apprentice" really is.
Worse, Turteltaub squanders international sex symbol Monica Bellucci by casting her as Veronica, Balthazar's ancient wizard main squeeze, a thankless role requiring her to flail about while being possessed by Le Fay.
This "Sorcerer's Apprentice" has no business using the title of a Walt Disney classic.
Sure, it's got the brooms, mops, buckets, the sorcerer and the apprentice.
The only thing missing is the magic.
<p class="factboxheadblack">'The Sorcerer's Apprentice'</p>
<p class="News">★★</p>
<p class="News"><b>Starring:</b> Nicolas Cage, Jay Baruchel, Alfred Molina, Teresa Palmer, Monica Bellucci</p>
<p class="News"><b>Directed by:</b> Jon Turteltaub</p>
<p class="News"><b>Other:</b> A Walt Disney release. Rated PG. 108 minutes</p>
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