It was an interesting idea, to be sure. That much was clear to me from this movie's previews, which showed, to my relief, that there would be a reference to the original cartoon of the same name featuring Mickey Mouse.
The original "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" from "Fantasia" AND "Fantasia 2000" -- that's right, it was so classic, so cool, that it got to be in both versions -- featured Mickey as an apprentice who puts on the sorcerer's magic hat and uses the power to clean the lair of the sorcerer. Things get out of hand to the tune of a fantastically written score and the sorcerer has to fix things. It really is a classic piece of Disney work, so I was glad to see that it would be alluded to in the new film directed by Jon Turteltaub.
The movie, however, was a little more intense. For more than 1,000 years, Balthazar Blake (Nicolas Cage), one of Merlin's three apprentices, has been searching the globe to find the person who is Merlin's heir. Along the way, he's been defeating members of the order of Morgana (Alice Krige) and imprisoning them, along with Morgana, inside a set of nesting dolls called the grimhold.
The other two apprentices, Balthazar's love Veronica (Monica Belucci) and the evil Horvath (Alfred Molina) are also inside there. When ordinary New York fourth-grader Dave (Jake Cherry) gets drawn into Balthazar's shop in modern New York, Horvath is accidentally released before Dave and Balthazar are sucked into a vase. Ten years later they get out, and Dave (now played by Jay Baruchel) must learn sorcery from Balthazar to defeat Morgana and her followers before they destroy the world.
The characters in "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" are well-done and quirky, fun and interesting, but they fit into their world -- our world -- very well. I like it when even the weirdest, most mystical characters have the kind of relatability where one feels one could meet them over hot cocoa and a blueberry scone at a corner café.
Also an interesting choice was the fusion of how to use magic with modern molecular physics and the explanation of magic to physics-passionate Dave -- it was appropriate and actually made sense. The writing was well-done, the script witty and intense at the right moments. Alfred Molina's Horvath was just so deliciously disdainful of those under him.
My favorite thing about the writing was, of course, the scene that pays homage to the original "Apprentice" -- and not just because it was a tribute to a classic but because of how well it was carried and written into the plot. Dave is cleaning up the lab/lair because his childhood/current love Becky (Teresa Palmer) is coming over, and, as with Mickey Mouse, things get out of hand. It wasn't forced, it wasn't too close to the original so that it stuck out -- each sorcerer has his own ring, there's no fancy hat -- and it even features the original score by Paul Dukas -- I love that music, he deserves credit for it -- for the cleaning gone awry.
I do have one teeny-tiny complaint. As Horvath goes through peeling through the layers of the grimhold to get to Morgana, he unleashes the other Morganians, including Miss Abigail Williams of Salem, Mass., one of my favorite historical characters from the Salem witch trials, an event that has always fascinated me. Maybe I'm just a history geek, but I would have loved to see Abigail (Nicole Ehinger) get more screen time. Of course, that would mean changing the narrative, but that is one thing I might suggest.
"The Sorcerer's Apprentice" was a condensed epic, mostly because there isn't time to see Balthazar defeat everyone in the grimhold, as awesome as that would be. Showing fully just the action coming after Dave's appearance in Balthazar's life was an appropriate choice for a tasteful action-fantasy.
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