The Sorcerer's Apprentice

• Title:  The Sorcerer's Apprentice
• Director:  Jon Turteltaub
• Date:  2010
• Studio:  Disney
• Genre:  Fantasy, Children's Film
• Cast:  Nicolas Cage, Jay Baruchel, Alfred Molina
• Format:  Color, Widescreen
• DVD Format:  R1, NTSC

"You've heard how people use only ten percent of their brains?  Sorcerers can manipulate matter because they're born with the capability to use the entire power of their brains.  Which also explains how molecular physics comes so easily to you."  - Balthazar

"The truth is you have a very special gift, you need to see that." - Balthazar

"OK, the first thing you need to know about me is I'm a sorcerer." - Dave

Nine-year-old Dave is on a field trip to New York City when he's separated from his classmates and ends up in a very bizarre magic store run by Balthazar (Nicholas Cage).  Balthazar tests Dave and realizes he's the Prime Merlinean.  Balthazar has been searching for the Prime Merlinean for over a thousand years.  However, before he can start to train the young sorcerer, they are attacked by an evil sorcerer name Horvath.  Dave escapes the store, and both Horvath (Alfred Molina) and Balthazar are trapped in an urn for ten years.

Ten years later, shy, nerdy, Dave has almost out-grown the embarrassment of  his experience at the magic store, and is now a physics student at NYU.  While making a presentation to a 101 class, he re-connects with Becky, a girl from his fourth grade class that due to the mess and the magic store he hadn't managed to impress.

Dave also meets Balthazar again, who convinces him that he is a sorcerer and begins to train him.  Meanwhile, Dave starts to date Becky.  He impresses her by fixing the electrical system of the college radio station where she works as a DJ, and later by treating her to a private Tesla coil concert in his private lab.  Dave's Tesla coil project is very coil, and the scene where he plays music with the coils to Becky, complete with indoor lightning is awesome. I've been to a Tesla coil concert before -- and they are awesome and very cool.  Becky becomes suitably impressed with her new boyfriend.

While Dave learns how to control his new-found powers, and starts his relationship with his new girlfriend, Horvath is not idle.  Also released at the same time as Balthazar, he begins to release evil sorcerers from the Grimholt a perpetual prison that resembles a Russian nesting doll.  With each sorcerer released in becomes smaller and smaller, until finally only Morgana -- the queen of evil sorcerers and nemesis of  Merlin and Veronica, Balthazar's lover and fellow apprentice of  Merlin who sacrificed herself  to capture Morgana.  Horvath also finds one modern magical "soldier", Drake Stone, a modern-day celebrity magician (think David Copperfield or Criss Angel).  But, as Horvath releases the evil sorcerers, he uses a parasite spell to take their powers.

Finally, Balthazar goes to stop Horvath and the newly-released Morgana from enacting a spell called, "The Rising", which will raise evil sorcerers from the dead and destroy the world.  Dave and Becky also arrive at the final conflict.  I won't spoil the finale.

Nicolas Cage makes for a great slightly scary slightly nutty sorcerer.  Jay Baruchel comes off as slightly whiny, but considering he's playing a self-professed "physics nerd", it's not that bad of  an acting job.  Alfred Molina plays a fun, over-the-top bad guy.  Teresa Palmer is a surprisingly spunky, non-annoying girl-next-door type, who is surprised but non-plussed when confronted with "real magic".  I liked that a somewhat "scientific" explanation was given for how magic works (matter isn't created or destroyed, merely re-arranged; for example -- an object is set on fire by rapidly vibrating the molecules in it).  The special effects consist of lots of computer morphing and "liquid object" effects.  However, practical in-camera gags were used at times at the beginning and end of  a specific effect.  Also, real fire effects were used, for example, in the sorcerer's training circles and spell circles.  (Obviously, "cool gel" was used for the fire).

Yes, as the title of  the film suggests, this film is based on the Mickey Mouse "Sorcerer's Apprentice" episode in Fantasia.  However, the film's opening sequence and voice-over add an intriguing backstory and setting to the main characters, creating a fantasy world that seems new, before moving forward in time to modern-day New York.  Overall, this film has a "pilot episode of a TV series" feel to it, or opening film in a series, rather than an individual separate film, which is too bad.  I would like to see more in the series, but it appears to be the only film Disney made.  Also, I enjoyed this film the most the first time I saw it, it loses some of  it's spark when it's re-watched.

Recommendation:  Pre-teens and Teenagers will probably enjoy this the best. Still, it's watchable.
Rating:  3.5 Stars
Next Film:  The Sound of  Music