The Sorceror’s Apprentice: Or how I learnt to stop worrying and love the wig
We are tightly wedged into the middle of the Summer blockbuster season and there’s no escape. The most important thing to remember is not to panic. Relax, let some blood flow back into your knuckles, maybe take some deep breaths. That was all I could think to do this week when faced with the double whammy of The Last Airbender and The Sorceror’s Apprentice. Airbender (I saw you sniggering) has delusions of grandeur, considering itself the opening chapter of a large globe-spanning opus involving characters that can ‘bend’ specific elements to their will. The film appears to stare back at you incedulously by the credits dumbfounded why you didn’t like it’s finest oak performances, daft exposition and frankly boring action set pieces. Whereas Apprentice has an equally barmy premise as well as being wholly unoriginal but takes itself far less seriously; pushing all the necessary buttons and throwing the right switches to make the rollercoaster move in the right direction. You’ve ridden it so many times before, but for some reason you can’t resist climbing aboard one more time. I couldn’t decide which to write about. There was literally a hair between them.
So Apprentice it is. If the title reminds you of Mickey Mouse and that bit in Fantasia then it’s meant to as that’s where the idea came from. There is a rather lame attempt at homage to the source material halfway through which they really shouldn’t have bothered with. Nicholas Cage is the titular sorceror and Jay Baruchel is the Mickey Mouse character. You may not recognise the name but you’ll have heard his voice in How To Train Your Dragon and may have seen him making googley eyes at Alice Eve in She’s Out Of My League. He does a good line in likable everyman and here is no exception. He plays David, a socially awkward physics nerd who learns from Cage’s amazingly named Balthazar Blake that he is a sorceror who needs schooling in the art to take on Alfred Molina’s evil conjuror (always excellent and doesn’t disappoint here, getting the right mix of menace and panto humour). There is also the obligatory love interest provided by the not unattractive Teresa Palmer. Plus some guff about Merlin.
From the pen of Jerry Bruckheimer and Disney, them of countless Summer adventure films, more recently National Treasure, The Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy and Prince of Persia. This one is from the same cookie cutter, it feels like the names and locations have changed but the story is identical. Every box is meticulously ticked, both parties have been churning this stuff out since the eighties and know the recipe off by heart. But just because cake is delicious, doesn’t mean I want to eat it everyday.
The tone is light and the effects are polished but both did little to ignite my interest. Even the usually live wired Nicholas Cage is off the boil. The best thing about his performance? His wig. Looking like a member of Def Lepard crossed with a old mop it’s doing more work than most it seems. A lot of the particularly testing sections of the film eased past as I was almost totally distracted by the syrup.
Overall it falls into that horrible deadzone of being neither good nor awful but instantly forgettable. And when the fake hair has more of a presence than the bloke underneath it you really are in trouble.
