Movie review: The Sorcerer's Apprentice ***

The Sorcerer’s Apprentice ***

Stars: Nicolas Cage, Jay Baruchel, Alfred Molina

Director: Jon Turteltaub

Rated: PG

Showing: Neptune Theatre week of Wednesday, August 4 - showing daily at 7:30pm

Runtime: 111 minutes

Action/adventure/fantasy

Disney’s summer blockbuster bears little resemblance to the classic scene in Fantasia from which it takes its name — but this action-packed tale of ­warring ­wizards should still work its magic at the box office.

It follows geeky physics student Dave Stutler (Jay Baruchel) who is recruited by Arthurian wizard Balthazar Blake (Nicolas Cage) to be his apprentice.

Balthazar is on a mission to ­protect the world from his arch nemesis Maxim Horvath (Alfred Molina), who is trying to restore evil witch Morgana to power ­following her defeat by Balthazar’s mentor Merlin 2000 years ago.

Can Balthazar teach Dave enough hocus pocus to defeat the dark forces? Of course — but only if Dave pays less attention to cute blonde Becky (Teresa Palmer) and focuses on his conjuring lessons.

This visually rich fantasy is another family friendly movie from the National Treasure trio of ­producer Jerry Bruckheimer, ­director Jon Turteltaub and star Nicolas Cage.

The action count is high, with numerous magic duels featuring electric thunderbolts and plasma balls and car chases in which the ­vehicles transform as they race.

Other spellbinding effects are characters being drawn into reverse worlds through mirrors and a Chinatown dragon coming to life. Insects and dust also turn into evil beings but we saw this before — done ­better — in The Mummy.

In fact, a lot of the movie has been done before — the training scenes call to mind Rocky or The Karate Kid, while the good vs evil ­wizards was done in Harry Potter.

Sadly, the magic lacks the charm of the Potter movies — it feels too manufactured and the special effects are excessive.

But there is comedy from Cage’s ­banter with his ­reluctant protégé and from the latter’s awkward, clumsy mistakes.

The highlight of the movie is a homage to the Fantasia scene it is named after, when Dave magics brooms and mops to clean up, all backed by that classic score.

Watch if you liked: Harry Potter, Stardust.

For more information about film times, call 292-7296.