After the recent success of The Prince Of Persia, Jerry Bruckheimer returns with his new production, The Sorcerer's Apprentice. The team behind Disney's successful franchise of The National Treasure movies has reunited and brings us a flick inspired by Disney's 1940 masterwork Fantasia.

The movie is directed by Jon Turteltaub, and Nicholas Cage takes on the lead role of Balthazar, with his protégé or 'apprentice' Dave, played by Jay Baruchel. The movie begins with a young boy chasing a note from his crush that has been blown away by the wind, between people's feet, down the street and straight into Balthazar's shop. Now, of course it is no coincidence that his note has landed there, and Balthazar proceeds to give the boy (Dave) a ring that proves that Dave is indeed meant to be a great sorcerer. Dave, experimenting with the ring manages to release the big bad sorcerer, Horovath, played by Alfred Molina, who has been trapped in a china doll known as the Grimhold that contains a bunch of other bad sorcerers in each of its layers. A fight between Balthazar and Horovath ensues and Balthazar manages to save Dave by trapping himself and Horovath in an urn. Fast forward 10 years later, Dave is a geeky student at NYU and is reunited with Balthazar to begin his training to become one of the greatest sorcerers of all time.

Out of all the horrible movies I've sat through this summer, this was probably by far the best. In many ways it was like the forerunner of The Prince Of Persia. A little romance, action, comedy all mashed together and voila, you have a 100 minute entertainer.

The movie worked for me for many reasons. Firstly the relationship between Balthazar and Dave as master and apprentice was developed quite nicely. Nicholas Cage does a pretty good job of playing Balthazar, although it felt like he had been picked up right from the middle of National Treasure and started off with his new role in the exact same manner. The resemblance was uncanny. However it was a shame that a pro like Nicholas had to share so much screen time with an amateur like Jay. Jay also manages to give a solid performance, however his geeky manner gets annoying after a while. If you've waited 10 years for a girl, you should at least try to string your sentences together, or even better, try not to act like a loser. This is the second time this summer we've seen Jay with this role, the first being his performance in She's Out Of My League.

The romance between Becky (Teresa Palmer) and Dave was quite enjoyable to watch. Although Dave's nerdy manner becomes irksome after a few scenes, I couldn't help but smile at his attempts to impress Becky, especially the scene where Dave shows her music with his experiment.

The movie falls short in a few areas. If Horovath indeed planned to destroy the world, the seriousness of the situation will be lost on the audience. Balthazar made no effort to convince Dave that he is the Prime Merilinian who has the power to destroy the evil sorcerer once and for all when Dave runs off disheartened. He seemed a bit too understanding when Dave wanted to ditch his training for his dates with Becky, I mean if the world really is going to end you can have your rendezvous later. In the end it all seemed to fall together too perfectly when Dave channels the power within at the exact right moment. Then again, it is a movie.
Monica Belluci's performance was hardly noteworthy due to her minor role in the movie. Teresa Palmer does a pretty good job throughout the movie, reminding me a bit of Kristen Stewart.

The movie reinvented a theme we have seen many times before. However the movie will have done well, mainly because the magic and the moves are set against the back drop of New York City. The Chinese festival with all the confetti flying around, the mirror tricks, and brooms running around on their own accord were definitely the most entertaining parts of the movie.

All in all, the movie has nothing on Fantasia which was a piece of art; however it won't be two hours of your life you'll be screaming for when it's over.

– Sarah Hussain

*CINEMATIC SUICIDE
**FORGETTABLE
***WATCHABLE
****COLLECTIBLE
*****AWARD-WORTHY