ANALYSIS: Balthazar, Veronica, and Horvath were the three apprentices of Merlin. Horvath betrayed them and went to the side of Morgana Le Fay. Veronica was able to possess the spirit of Morgana, but Balthazar had to imprison them and Horvath
until he can find the person who will replace Merlin (the only one who can destroy Morgana).
Balthazar
searches for over 1000 years until he finds Dave, a ten year old boy who wanders off from a school trip chasing after a note
to a little girl. Balthazar ends up trapped with Horvath for ten years
until both of them are free again. Dave is now a college student studying physics
and building Tesla coils in an underground area near an abandoned subway station.
Balthazar races against time to train Dave as his apprentice while Horvath wants to get the Chinese doll that contains
Morgana and the other evil sorcerers that Balthazar has trapped. Horvath
wants to bring about the resurrection of all dead sorcerers and he needs Morgana for that one.
Also, Dave falls in love with Becky who he wanted to be involved with about ten years ago.
THE SORCERER’S
APPRENTICE is a fun adventure with plenty of action and humor. Nicolas Cage plays
the cranky old wizard quite well. It is fun to see little homages to STAR
WARS, RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, and even FANTASIA. A little scene at the
end of the credits even sets it up for a sequel. I do wish the movie was
a little longer as I wanted to know more about Balthazar and his training with Dave.
The beginning sets up events for the present day neatly within just a few minutes.
This film might be another start of a franchise for Disney that is produced by Jerry Bruckheimer Films.
SPECIAL FEATURES:
The DVD is scant on extras where the blu-ray
in the Blu-ray/ DVD combo has more extras. The Blu-ray has five deleted scenes
where the DVD only has one. The Blu-ray has outtakes. I wish the DVD had all the deleted scenes and the outtakes.
All the DVD has is one deleted scene in addition to THE MAKING OF THE SORCERER’S APPRENTICE- a featurette that
focuses on using much of new York City as a location for the film, using physical effects as much as possible, and playing
homage to Fantasia.
Also on the Blu-ray are additional making-of
featurettes. I do wish Disney would keep trying to be scant on extras for DVD
while focusing for Blu-ray. I know studios won’t do that, but I wish they
would at least not split up the deleted scenes for Blu-ray and DVD where sometimes Blu-ray has additional deleted scenes or
all of the deleted scenes because some DVD fans may never go Blu-ray and still want the benefit of seeing all of the deleted
scenes (which are some of my favorite extras on any DVD release).
FINAL ANALYSIS: THE SORCERER’S APPRENTICE is a fun fantasy film. I
do wish more of the extras were included on the DVD (instead of focusing most of the extras to Blu-ray).
This DVD review is ©11-26-2010
David Blackwell and cannot be reprinted without permission. Send all comments
to lord_pragmagtic@hotmail.com
