Film Review: Forged in Myth, Nicolas Cage Shines in ‘The Sorcerer’s Apprentice’

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CHICAGO – The fantasy action epic has joined the animated film as the go-to genre for summer films. Disney joins the fray with “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice,” featuring magic, special effects action and a deep mythology, spiced with Nicolas Cage doing a slightly warped version of a King Arthur-era apprentice for Merlin the Magician.

HollywoodChicago.com Oscarman rating: 3.5/5.0
Rating: 3.5/5.0

Merlin actually has three apprentices, as the film opens in the Arthurian age. Balthazar (Cage), becomes locked in a battle with Merlin against the evil Morgana (Alice Krige). Another of Merlin’s protégés, Horvath (Alfred Molina), has joined the evil side and the third apprentice, Veronica (Monica Bellucci), has allied with Balthazar and the elderly wizard. In an epic battle, Merlin is compromised, while Horvath, Morgana and Veronica become magically locked in a Russian nesting doll-type container.

Balthazar then becomes an immortal, roaming the world in search of a boy who is destined to be the next Merlin, in order to free his colleagues and defeat Morgana. By sheer coincidence he comes upon a boy named Dave in New York City in the year 2000. The boy has accidentally come into Balthazar’s antique shop, a front for his activities. As he looks at the nesting doll, the evil layer is suddenly released in his presence, and a battle between Horvath and Balthazar takes place in front of him. They end up locked in another container, in a spell lasting ten years.

After running from the shop, the boy is retrieved and embarrassed in front of his school group, and grows up as a tech nerd who ends up teaching at NYU. What he doesn’t know is that he is the boy that Balthazar has been searching for. Full grown Dave (Jay Baruchel) encounters Balthazar again ten years to the day of their first meeting, this time brought into the battle after the two other sorcerers have been freed.

It will now be up to Balthazar to teach his new apprentice the magical ropes, to defeat Morgana and Horvath, who has recruited a magician of his own, Drake Stone (Tony Kebbell). The final battle will take place on the streets of Manhattan.

“The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” opens in everywhere July 14th. Featuring Nicolas Cage, Alfred Molina, Monica Bellucci, Jay Baruchel, Teresa Palmer, Toby Kebbell and Alice Krige. Screenplay by Matt Lopez, Doug Miro and Carlo Bernard and directed by Jon Turteltaub. Rated “PG

StarContinue reading for Patrick McDonald’s full review of “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice”

Mentoring: Nicholas Cage as Balzathar and His Apprentice Dave (Jay Baruchel) in ‘The Sorcerer’s Apprentice’
Mentoring: Nicolas Cage as Balthazar and Apprentice Dave (Jay Baruchel) in ‘The Sorcerer’s Apprentice’
Photo Credit: © Walt Disney Pictures

StarContinue reading for Patrick McDonald’s full review of “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice”

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