The Sorcerer's Apprentice (2010) Review

The good news, if you are not a Monica Bellucci completist, is that the rival sorcerers are played by Alfred Molina and Nicolas Cage. Mr. Molina, who was perhaps a bit too sensitive as Doc Ock in “Spiderman 2,” attacks his villainous role, Maxim, with mustache-twirling relish. As Balthazar, Mr. Cage, having worked with the director, Jon Turteltaub, on the popular “National Treasure” series, refines the oddball intensity he brought to those pictures and mixes in new flavors of wackiness. If he has not quite approached a Christopher Walken level of sublime self-parody, Mr. Cage has at least established himself as the heir to Al Pacino in the crazy mentor pantheon.

“The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” is the latest movie about an ordinary fellow — it’s almost always a fellow — who is, all of a sudden and to his great astonishment, dragged into an epochal, supernatural battle between good and evil. The fellow in question this time is the distinctly unpromising Jay Baruchel, a gangly Canadian ectomorph who got the girl (though not much of an audience) in “She’s Out of My League” and who trained the cartoon dragon in “How to Train Your Dragon.” Here he plays an N.Y.U. physics major named Dave who tinkers with a giant Tesla coil in his subterranean laboratory and pines for Becky (Teresa Palmer), a pretty music lover who was his childhood crush.

Meanwhile, though, Dave has learned that he is the Prime Merlinian, which means that “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” is not just another dweeb/cutie romantic comedy, but also a phantasmagorical action picture in which bolts of lightning will shoot out of people’s hands, and ancient spells will be uttered to cataclysmic effect right on the streets of Manhattan. To spare you the full rehash: hundreds of years ago a bunch of bad wizards were stuffed into a Russian doll, including the really mean Morgana (Alice Krige) and the gorgeous Veronica (Monica Bellucci). Now two supermagicians, Balthazar Blake and Maxim Horvath, battle to let one of the ladies out of the doll — called the Grimhold, by the way — and keep the other one trapped inside.

Source: http://www.onlinenewstrack.com/2010/07/16/the-sorcerers-apprentice-2010-review/