With the Transformers franchise possibly ending next year, producer Jerry Bruckheimer is on the hunt for another lucrative action-adventure/fantasy series that has the ability to spawn off installments. Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, which failed to deliver, marked Bruckheimer’s strike one if I were to apply it to baseball.
Now comes The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, inspired by the brief animated orchestral segment from Disney’s Fantasia (1940) that featured Mickey Mouse as a magician. Unlike Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, the good news is that The Sorcerer’s Apprentice is not Bruckheimer’s strike two.
The film manages to hit a few balls in this live action version about a 500-year-old magician named Balthazar (Nicolas Cage) who’s been searching for centuries to find his next apprentice. Enter Dave Stutler (Jay Baruchel), a nerdy college physics student who is reluctantly recruited to become the next sorcerer as he must help Balthazar defend Manhattan and perhaps the world from his arch nemesis Maxim Horvath (Alfred Molina).
There are a few laughs and even a couple mock references to Star Wars (1977) and Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981). Instead of hitting that desperate home run out of the park that’s needed to win the game, however, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice eventually hits a foul ball.
