It’s interesting to think about the ways in which uber-producer Jerry Bruckheimer’s output for Disney has evolved over the years. What was conceivable as a mid-level, high-concept star vehicle, say something like Tony Scott’s “Deja Vu” or “Crimson Tide,” just a few years ago, is now something of an impossibility, thanks to Disney’s recent laser-like focus on big budget family fare. (We recently reported how this mandate helped off Bruckheimer’s long-in-development “Killing Rommel.”) Everything Bruckheimer produces for the studio now is the kind of glitzy, audience-pandering extravaganza that isn’t exactly outside of his wheelhouse, but has now become his exclusive bread-and-butter, including this summer’s iffy “Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time.” And what’s so ironic is that it was Bruckheimer that helped make this mandate law after the astounding success of his “Pirates of the Caribbean” films.
The latest entry in the new, all-audiences stage of Bruckheimer’s career is “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice,” a glittery live action movie that is, at its core, a live action variation on the Mickey Mouse short from “Fantasia” that had the magically enchanted brooms. (Pause now to ponder how many high-powered execs it took to come up with this brilliant idea.)
Directed by “National Treasure’s” Jon Turtletaub, “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” starts out lively enough, with a brief prologue that sets up the stakes, although the editing of this introductory sequence screams “Test audiences thought the beginning dragged – let’s chop it up and make it go faster! We can even add some clunky narration from Ian McShane!” Anyway, the story is that Merlin (James A. Stephens) had three apprentices: Balthazar (Nicolas Cage), Veronica (Monica Bellucci) and Horvath (Alfred Molina). The evil Morgana (Alice Krige) forges a plot with Horvath to betray the other apprentices, kill Merlin, and rule the world. They get two of the three things checked off their “to do” list, before Veronica does some kind of soul-sharing spell and gets trapped in a kind of Russian doll, for all of eternity. This makes Balthazar sad, because he was romantically involved with Veronica. And in Merlin’s dying words, he intones that Balthazar should spend his life looking for the next Sorcerer’s apprentice; the next Merlin.
This is all incredibly convoluted set-up for the actual plot of the movie, which we get to shortly after the movie opens, with another cute little scene where the child version of our hero meets Balthazar, accidentally unleashes Horvath, and just-as-accidentally traps them both in an urn for ten years.
Flash forward 10 years and our precocious young un’ has grown up to become awkward Canadian actor Jay Baruchel, a self-professed “physics nerd” who is studying electromagnetism at NYU. Once both Balthazar and Horvath are unleashed on modern day New York, all hell breaks loose. Balthazar starts training the reluctant student via a series of zingy montages, while Horvath goes about assembling the forces of evil in an attempt to unleash Morgana and end the world. That’s pretty much it as far as “plot” goes, although the filmmakers do all they can to make it as muddled and “mythological” as possible.
While this premise is fairly threadbare, a loose combination of elements from “Ghostbusters,” “Men in Black,” and the “Harry Potter” movies (we’re very tired of movies in which a character’s defining trait is that it’s his destiny to do something), but the acting does a lot to elevate the material. In particular, we’d like to single out the weedy Toby Kebbell, who also starred in “Prince of Persia,” as a kind of Criss Angel-esque celebrity magician who becomes Horvath’s #2 and attache to the modern world. It’s also worth noting that both Molina and Cage bring a kind of knowing severity to their dueling magicians, in one moment completely acknowledging how silly this all is and in the other intoning the material with great heft. Their costumes are great, too, with Cage’s look harking back to Arthurian times and Molina’s having a decidedly 1930s flair.
What, exactly, is going on at any given moment remains a little fuzzy, however. There seems to have been extensive post-production tweaking, given the absurd number of scenes that feature fairly large plot points revealed through off camera delivery or through terribly-done dubbing. Also, the sequence that pays tribute to the “Fantasia” bit (complete with the Paul Dukas musical cue) seems like something of an afterthought and serves no real purpose besides homage.
But you know what? The movie isn’t terrible. It is occasionally groan-worthy, like any gooey scene that Baruchel shares with his love interest, Theresa Palmer, playing another character we initially met as a little kid – these scenes stop the movie dead in its tracks and you could hear the audience squirming. Also – did we really need to hear the same OneRepublic song three separate times? If there’s one thing that can instantly date the timeless power of magic, then it’s probably a OneRepublic song on the soundtrack.
On the whole, though, “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” is pretty enjoyable. Turtletaub, a director who redefines the term “workmanlike,” knows how to keep things moving, and the visual effects have a rich, tactile quality that was missing from “The Last Airbender” as a storm of confetti engulfs Chinatown, an eagle from the Chrysler Building takes flight, and large plumes of colored fire and smoke erupt from New York City streets. In a neat chase sequence, the two magicians transform their respective vehicles and send each other through a “mirror” version of New York City where the streets are empty and all the signage is backwards. In sequences like these the movie comes alive and becomes utterly involving, a whiz-bang treat that everyone can enjoy.
And more often than not you are enjoying “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice,” fighting through the gummy mythology and stock story beats. If you’re ducking into the movie theater simply for the air conditioning and promise of a large, ice-filled soda, then you could do a lot worse. While the movie misses the kind of “gee-shucks” awe that the best “Harry Potter” films deliver, it’s still a serviceable and stylish effects-filled extravaganza. Bruckheimer may have lost his edge when he linked up with Disney, but he still knows what entertains: Nicolas Cage dressed up like “Vampire Hunter D,” Alfred Molina in a bowler hat, and a shit ton of special effects. [B-]
