THE SORCERER’S APPRENTICE
2 out of 5 stars


great special effects, but fails on plot development and a good antagonist... (morgana la fay? really? is that the best you could come up with, disney?) lots of good characters AKA the sorcerers with awesome names like balthazar blake and maxim horvath, but in the end, it’s just about some dude learning magic from some homeless guy... oh, my bad... that was nicholas cage? oops... :P

the movie starts out with the betrayal of merlin, and the story of how two of his apprentices stopped morgana from performing the “rising”. (basically, she’s trying to destroy the world) intros are made, and we learn that merlin had three apprentices: balthazar blake (cage), veronica (monica belluci), and horvath (the always fab alfred molina). veronica ended up sacrificing herself to capture morgana’s essence, then balthazar captured her in something called the grimhold, which is a magical nesting doll. fast forward to the year 2000, a 10 year old named david stutler, who goes on a class field trip to one of the major NYC museums, but wanders off into an old antiquities store called arcana cabana. there, he meets balthazar blake for the first time, and is really creeped out by him and all the strange artifacts... balthazar shows young dave a dragon ring once owned by merlin, and it reacts by wrapping itself around his finger. but before you know it, dave starts messing with the ring, and the grimhold opens its first layer: horvath. fast forward to the year 2010, and 20 year old dave (jay baruchel) is a physics student at NYU, and of course, balthazar and horvath literally fight to save/kill dave, who apparently is the only one who can defeat the evil morgana...

like i said, the special effects and all that was done to magically “enhance” the movie are great. (esp. the mirror car chase... that was in fact pretty well done) it’s no harry potter though, and the plot is... i’m sorry, but it’s pretty lame. they could have done more with the characters, since they actually seemed quite interesting, but they don’t... (a shame) i actually thought this was a bit scary for a disney production, especially since this was suppose to be an adaptation of their beloved fantasia. fantasy it may be, but it sure as hell ain’t fantastic... :/