The storyline of The Sorcerer’s Apprentice is nowhere near simple. The writers Lawrence Konner, Mark Rosenthal and Matt Lopez combine an amazing amount of genres into a two hour movie. There is romance, action, thriller, suspense, family, comedy and a bunch more all shoved into the flowing plots and subplots of The Sorcerer’s Apprentice.
The Sorcerer’s Apprentice opens with the story of Merlin and his apprentices. This sets the tone for the entire movie, and introduces three of the main characters and the villains, as well as actually stating the overarching plot point of the entire movie in the statement, “the prime-merlinian is the only one who can kill Morgana” . That’s right, this is not only a magically enhanced story, it is given a Merlinesque tint that truly connects The Sorcerer’s Apprentice to other magical movies. This scene is also where one of the greatest sorcerer battles takes place, and sets the pace for every fight sequence throughout the entire movie. After Morgana and her disciple manage to grievously wound Merlin, Balthazar Blake (Nicholas Cage) is given the task of finding Merlin’s successor and helping him to destroy Morgana. Luckily, Balthazar is able to trap her in a magical container called the Grimhold since he won’t be able to find Merlin’s successor for around 1000 years.
Enter Dave, a young kid who seems to be pretty “fly” and is going on a field trip in New York. He asks this cute young thing, Becky, to be his girlfriend in a note; but the note ends up being swept away in the wind and by “coincidence” leading young Dave to the Arcana Cabana, Balthazar’s store. Here he meets Balthazar, who gives him the dragon ring. The ring ends up liking Dave, so Balthazar takes him on as a student. Unfortunately, Balthazar is getting ready to teach Dave sorcery, Dave releases Horvath (one of Morgana’s minions) from the Grimhold. In an extreme show of sorcery and magical power Balthazar and Horvath battle it out, until Balthazar traps them both in a magical urn to save Dave and the Grimhold.
Fast forward ten years. Dave has gone from cool kid to geeky physics nerd who wants nothing to do with remembering anything about that fateful day. He is a genius, grad student who is helping to teach a physics class. Here he meets Becky, the same crush from ten years ago. He ends up making a fool of himself in a spazzy way, much different from the last time.
Finally, the ten years are up and Horvath and Balthazar are released from their prison. Horvath confronts Dave in his kitchenette and the battles ensue again. Dave starts running to be saved by Balthazar, who then tells him about his destiny. After this, Dave finally and reluctantly begins to help Balthazar search for/protect the Grimhold all while learning magic. During this time, they fight a number of sorcerers; all while Dave is trying to rekindle his romance with Becky. Unfortunately, Horvath uses this relationship to capture Becky and hold her ransom for the Grimhold and Dave’s Dragon ring (the source of his power).
The final battle ensues, with Balthazar going up against Horvath and Morgana as he tries to stop them from casting a spell to take over the world. Dave, who is now magic-less manages to figure out how to help Balthazar and stop Horvath. unfortunately, there is still Morgana le Fey to contend with. In an effort to save his friends, Dave taps into his hidden power and shows himself as the prime-merlinian. He is finally able to defeat Morgana using both magic and science so that everyone can live happily ever after.
Of course this is not a detailed review, since I don’t want to ruin the movie and the subplots for you, but as I mentioned above that The Sorcerer’s Apprentice encompasses aspects from a number of different types of movies. Understanding these multitude of aspects will help to put this movie into perspective. In The Sorcerer’s Apprentice there is something for everyone. There is the love story of the ages surrounding Balthazar and Veronica; combined with the young puppy love of Dave and Becky. There is action and suspense galore in a multitude of fight scenes. While many family movies skip on the action, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice delivers intense well-choreographed fight scenes. Of course, the story itself is meant to be family friendly and it captures the minds and imaginations of any age. Finally the comedy, is relatively dry. I mean, yes they have some funny parts for the kids; however, there were enough adult nuances to keep me entertained. Sadly, while there were these adult features the storyline and plot twists are what should be expected from a Disney movie. This was meant for little children to understand, and therefore is presented in a relatively basic, straightforward fashion.
The actors in The Sorcerer’s Apprentice are all top shelf, a-grade celebrities. The top billed star in this movie is Nicholas Cage, who plays Balthazar Blake. While Cage has had money problems that caused him to take on a number of unusual roles, he is back in his element in this movie. Cage plays a badass good guy that is just a little bit strange. The same type of character he has become known for. So, of course, his acting in The Sorcerer’s Apprentice is impeccable. Add to that Jay Baruchel and there is a dynamic, dysfunctional duo. If you have ever seen any Baruchel movie, then his role as the geeky, spazzy guy will be no surprise. Add to that his attempts to woo a beautiful girl, and he reminds me of every stereotype of this character (including myself). Teresa Palmer plays the love interest, Becky. She does an admirable job playing the popular girl who looks into herself to find her willingness to love a personality over looks. Enough of the romantic détente, the fourth and final major actor in The Sorcerer’s Apprentice brings the pain. Alfred Molina plays Horvath, the major villain or anti-hero through the entire movie. Do I even have to describe how good of a villain Molina is? He brought such a sinister aspect, and a sense of class to Horvath that it created this amazing persona. Add to this his amazing acting skill and you have a top notch villain. He is accompanied by his bedazzled, idiot lackey Drake Stone played by Tony Kebbell. He does a wonderful job playing this pretty-boy, celebritante fool. To describe Kebbell’s skills, he reminded me of a male Paris Hilton with magic.
With an amazing story and a wonderful cast, Disney did not skimp on a production budget. Every detail of this movie was planned out and presented in a beautiful fashion. Since this is a magical movie, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice contains a lot of special effects and CGI or computer generated images. The scenes were seamless. I do not know how many hours were spent making the magical scenes from this movie look realistic. Don’t worry, I know there is no such thing as magic. However, if I had to imagine what a plasma bolt would look like (and I have because I am that kind of geek) I always thought it looked like the bolts in The Sorcerer’s Apprentice. As an example of how good the special effects were, the plasma bolts actually showed the gathering of energy before the bolt was formed. This amazing style of attention to detail is placed in every aspect of the production. This made me happy since I hate it when fight scenes or dramatic moments look staged. Throughout the entire movie, director John Turtletaub ensured there was a great flow and liquidity between the cast. Never did the dialogue or movements look scripted or overly rehearsed. This is one feature that really impressed me with this movie.
Of course with all of this work on the movie quality, the Blu-ray and DVD combo was just as beautiful. From the shiny box art down to the menu selects, everything in The Sorcerer’s Apprentice Blu-ray gave a sense of beauty and magic. Since this was a Blu-ray and I am using a plasma TV, the quality of the movie was astounding. It was a lot better than movie quality, of course; but surprisingly it was not as dynamic as some of the scenes that I have seen from Disney’s nature series. However, I am not complaining. This was my first Blu-ray to own, and as a huge movie buff I can tell the difference between the DVD and Blu-ray copies of this same movie.
The bonus feature selection in The Sorcerer’s Apprentice go beyond the call of duty. There were over nine different shorts that delved into all aspects of this movie. The first bonus feature was titled Magic in the City. Here they talked about making the movie in New Your City, and bringing the world of magic alive inside that metropolitan area. Secondly is the Science of Sorcery. Here is where the developers of The Sorcerer’s Apprentice talk about how they mixed magic and science to create a new idea and theory about what magic is and how it occurs. It was quite interesting to hear these “theories” behind the sorcerers magical abilities. The third feature was aptly named Making Magic Real. In this bonus feature the developers discuss how they use CGI and other amazing items to give the realistic feeling, mentioned above, to the spells and magic. The next segment talks about how one of the wardrobes was designed. As mentioned above, Drake Stone was bedazzled, and the segment the Fashionable Drake Stone delves into the difficulties and nuances of this characters wardrobe.
After this comes a segment about the Grimhold. In this featurette, the developers talk about what the Grimhold is, as well as the number of different concept sketches that were made before deciding on the Russian doll. The Encantus provides the next section of the bonus features menu. Here is where the developers and props department talk about the magical spellbook. They also describe the creation of the Encantus and how much work went into it. The next bonus feature is called Wolves and Puppies. This was just a cute snippet that showed how a single scene was made using animals. It added an aww factor to the bonus feature selections. This is followed by the bonus segment about the “World’s Coolest Car”. That would be the one of a kind Aston Martin that Nicholas Cage lent to the studio for the production of the movie. They talk about what this car is, how they used it and how they protected it. Add to this already brimming selection of bonus features deleted scenes and outtakes and there is a wondrous amount of bonus material available on the Blu-ray edition of The Sorcerer’s Apprentice.
In short, whoever you are this movie is worth it. The Sorcerer’s Apprentice has something for everyone of every age. Between the story and the quality this Blu-ray release has it all.
