Director: Jon Turteltaub
Running time: 105 mins (approx)
Certification (UK): PG
Genre: Action/Adventure/Comedy
UK Release date: 13th August 2010
Watched on Sky+ Saturday 11th June 2011.
PLEASE NOTE: THERE MAY BE SPOILERS IN THIS REVIEW.
You know how sometimes curiosity can get the better of you and you find yourself in a situation you would rather have avoided. Well that’s what happened when this film came up on TV recently. I thought, “How bad can it really be?” well, it’s bad enough that I had to resort to the ironing to get through to the end. Yes, there are exciting bits, some funny bits and some really impressive CGI, but the story and the characters were just not there.
For a change I won’t bore you with a summary as we’ve all seen the basic story a thousand times before. What did interest me more was the back-story that is just skimmed over at the beginning of the film. I would have much rather seen the story of Balthazar up to the point where he finds the ‘Chosen One’ in New York City. What happens after that is all so predictable and I really hope they don’t make a sequel.
Performance wise, well, Nicolas Cage does his best impression of Nicolas Cage as Balthazar Blake, the ‘Sorcerer’ of the title. Jay Baruchel has probably the most irritating voice I’ve ever heard and he plays the ‘Apprentice’ of the title, Dave Stutler (who’d have guessed the saviour of the world would be called Dave). Of course there has to be a bad guy and this amply is provided by Alfred Molina as the evil Maxim Horvath. And finally, the love interest is provided by Teresa Palmer as Becky Barnes.
As you can probably guess I didn’t enjoy this Bruckheimer/Disney co-production too much. It all seemed too superficial, I found it hard to identify with any of the characters, except maybe the bad guy, Horvath. As I’ve already said, the special effects are very impressive, but that’s the problem, they do look like special effects. I don’t believe the filmmakers are aware of the phrase ‘less is more’ in some cases… and this is one of those cases. You may think I’m being a little generous with my score, but I do appreciate the skill involved in bringing this visually impressive if uninspiring film to the screen. I did like the nod to the animated Disney film ‘The Sword in the Stone’, that was actually quite funny. Over all though, sadly NOT recommended.
My Score: 5.4/10
LINKS:
(RT=Rotten Tomatoes)
IMDb Page: http://uk.imdb.com/title/tt0963966/
RT Page: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/sorcerers_apprentice/
Official Site: http://adisney.go.com/disneypictures/sorcerersapprentice/
Trailer:
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