The Sorcerer's Apprentice Reviews

I wasn’t sure what to expect from this flick but I was expecting, at least, a mildly entertaining blockbuster. Indeed, basically, you have here the same team which made ‘National Treasure’, producer Jerry Bruckheimer, director Jon Turteltaub and of course, Nicolas Cage, so at least, I thought it would at least reach this level. Unfortunately, I thought it was terribly underwhelming and yet another disappointing feature starring Nicolas Cage. Nowadays, each new movies starring this guy is another blow to his career and he makes it really difficult to defend him against all those haters. The sad thing is that, this time, at least there was an interesting concept. Seriously, Cage could have given one of his really wacky performances and there were a (very few) moments when you could catch a glimpse of what it could have been (‘I can read minds!’was one of those moments) but it wasn’t meant to be. Indeed, he played the whole thing straight but the rest of the movie was not much better, I’m afraid. I mean, it was well made and the special effects were pretty cool but the story and the characters were terribly generic and I was seriously bored during most of the duration. Honestly, I was rather amazed about how lazy and pedestrian the whole thing was. For Jay Baruchel, it was a missed hat trick, since in 2010 he already had 2 surprise success with ‘She’s Out of My League’ and ‘How to Train Your Dragon’ and this movie was supposed to finalize his status of storming talent but guess what? 2 years later we don’t hear much from him anymore and I’m pretty sure this movie is to be blamed. To conclude, even though it wasn’t really awful, it was still pretty damned average and I don’t think it is really worth a look.

Story was slightly stupid. Comedy and fights and special effects were great. As a quick comparison to Percy Jackson Lightning Thief this was better. Partly because Percy's plot mistakes were way more irritating than in Sorc. Apprentice.

To be perfectly honest, the trailer looked typical Disney that combines fiction with reality just with live-action, not animation. I am not really a great big fan of live-action Disney films although there have been fantastic Disney live-action films over the years such as Pirates Of The Caribbean, Enchanted, The Chronicles Of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time and few others but I am afraid to say that this is one of their weakest live-action films. Understandably, Disney try to take you to an enchanting world or to mix fiction with reality as I said but this wasn't gripping to hold on to and also it wasn't even fun to watch because the dialogue was so cheesy and unrealistic although the effects were fantastic.


Balthazar Blake is a master sorcerer in modern-day Manhattan trying to defend the city from his arch-nemesis, Maxim Horvath. Balthazar can't do it alone, so he recruits Dave Stutler, a seemingly average guy who demonstrates hidden potential, as his reluctant protégé. The sorcerer gives his unwilling accomplice a crash course in the art and science of magic, and together, these unlikely partners work to stop the forces of darkness. It'll take all the courage Dave can muster to survive his training, save the city and get the girl as he becomes The Sorcerer's Apprentice.


Jay Baruchel may have played the main character in How To Train Your Dragon but his performance as Dave in The Sorcerer's Apprentice is absolutely appalling! He brought nothing new to a character who has been dragged into magic and his life being changed forever. He was just another hopeless, teenage muppet who has absolutely no character whatsoever. I mean, with that girl that Dave met, I literally thought when they saw each other that she's gonna get herself involved and they're gonna end up kissing and guess what? To my shock horror, they did! The entire film was stupidly predictable! Nicolas Cage hasn't been a fantastic actor for quite a while (only just managed to create his breakthrough in Kick-Ass) but in all fairness to him, I don't think he was that awful in this one than he has been before in the past. Alfred Molina has portrayed a villain in pretty much every fantasy/sci-fi film that he has been involved in (let's not forget his fantastic portrayal of Dr. Otto Octavius/Doctor Octopus) and I actually liked him in this one which did surprise me a lot. That is probably the best quality that the film had besides the effects despite the film overall was crap.


Jon Turterltaub, I'll give you credit: you did a decent job with both National Treasure films which are also produced by Disney but I'm sorry but this was just in a word; fail. You really need to wise up and make films that are actually entertaining and are gripping to the audience, not this extremely predictable, soppy and daft shit. I mean, I am usually really into fictional fantasy films that involve magic, magical creatures and objects etc but the characters within this film just didn't work for me at all. The script was crazy! I mean, one minute there is archaeology discussion then there's babbling on about wizards then about teenage lovers at school and so on and the lines that they come out with is like disgustingly hilarious!


Overall, The Sorcerer's Apprentice is a crap film that I really did not like and one that I wouldn't call an example just for entertainment. Nicolas Cage, you can do so much better! The effects were obviously brilliant but pretty much everything else was just shit. One of the worst films of 2010.

I thought it was pretty good. Not the best movie, but definitely worth watching. Love the allusion to the original Disney cartoon of the same name.

So, I went into this film with low expectations, and came out of it with an enjoyable memory for the afternoon. Not grand cinema, to be sure, and certainly not as good as Pirates of the Caribbean, which they are obviously still trying to duplicate the success of, but quite enjoyable. And there's enough there for them to do a sequel if they so wanted.

I could have done with a few more layers of substance, but as a Merlin fan, the young man playing Dave was perfect. So geeky that I just couldn't help but feel for him.

The love story felt unnecessary. I would have rather had a gradual growing of the character's abilities over a longer period of time than this forced rush of exposition/special effects that apparently took place in perhaps a week? Not quite believable. Not that I expected it to be, but still, I would have preferred substance over flash.

Cage's performance is definitely one of his better ones. Whoever was directing obviously did a good job of reining him in on this one, as there were only a couple of scenes where he over-acted, and several scenes where he actually felt the part he was portraying.

Mostly? I think this could have used a few more years of plotting to flesh it out more. It would have made for a more interesting story. And we can always use a new version of the hero's tale.

Overall? Not bad, just not great, but if you like Cage or the subject matter, well worth a viewing.