THE SORCERER'S APPRENTICE.

Going into this movie, I pretty much knew what I was going to expect: magic, decent special effects, Jay Baruchel bumbling around, Nic Cage hamming it up, and me leaving entertained. Well, one of those things didn't happen. Inspired by the Fantasia segment by the same name (and yes, the segment is partially included), The Sorcerer's Apprentice begins by telling us about how Merlin had 3 apprentices: Balthazar (Nicolas Cage), Horvath (Alfred Molina), and Veronica (Monica Bellucci). Horvath ends up turning on the others and joining up with evil sorceress Morgana (Alice Krige) to bring back evil sorcerers from the dead and destroy the world. But when Veronica merges herself with Morgana, Balthazar is forced to trap her in a Grimhold--a Russian doll-within-a-doll-type object. Over the years, he also traps other descendants/apprentices of Morgana in the Grimhold over the centuries, and eventually also Horvath. Balthazar is given the task of looking throughout the centuries for Merlin's successor, the Prime Merlinian, and finds him in Dave (Jay Baruchel). Dave is supposed to have the ability to defeat Morgana once and for all, but he'll have to stop the newly released Horvath and his newest apprentice, famous magician Drake Stone (Toby Kebbell), before it necessarily gets that far. And all the while, he tries to woo a childhood crush, Becky (Teresa Palmer).

There's really not a whole lot to say about the movie that you couldn't probably suspect on your own. One thing that surprised me, however, was how they mixed magic and science. I'm not exactly sure why they did this, except maybe to have religious zealots either love or hate them even more (depending, I suppose). It looked cool, though. Some of the special effects could have been better (any of the 'statues-come-to-life' bits in particular). But they weren't too bad.

I mentioned earlier that only one of my expectations wasn't completely met. That expectation was, actually, Nic Cage hamming it up. Oh, he has his moments ("I CAN READ MINDS!" being a personal favorite), but I expected it to be more consistent. Who doesn't love a batty Nic Cage? But the majority of the time, he's just your average "mentor" character. Jay Baruchel is one of those actors you probably really like or mostly tolerate, mostly due to his voice. Personally, I really like the guy--and considering How To Train Your Dragon is one of my favorite movies of this year so far, I can honestly say his voice isn't that bothersome to me. And I really enjoyed him in this. Oh, and Alfred Molina as the villain is, well... Alfred Molina as a villain. You've seen it before.

The movie was, of course, predictable, but I didn't expect anything different. I didn't go into this movie looking for another Inception. However, there were quite a few things that were too similar to other things. For instance, they--for whatever reason--seemed to mix the original "Sorcerer's Apprentice" song from Fantasia with the theme from Pirates of the Caribbean, and it was pretty distracting. I half expected Jack Sparrow to walk on screen. Then near the end, there are these black tubes of smoke blasting from the sky, and I almost screamed out "DEATH EATERS!" Finally, I just sat there at the climax of the movie waiting (and honestly hoping) for Jay Baruchel to go "KAME... HAME... HA!" That actually might have knocked my rating for this movie up another notch, really. Though we did get a kind of "Final Flash" in there (if you know anything I'm saying right now, high five). I'm pretty sure there was one other thing I noticed in there somewhere, but I can't recall it at the moment.

Anyway, this movie was pretty good entertainment. It was predictable summer fun. There really wasn't all that much I disliked about it. Though there is one scene that has horrible ADR. Baruchel is talking to another character in a car, and the shot is over his shoulder. You can see his mouth moving, and it's nothing remotely close to what he's saying. And this happens twice. But it's mostly a pretty harmless flick. It's not great by any means, but it strove for entertaining and that's what it got.


I Am McLovin!

PRINCE OF PERSIA: THE SANDS OF TIME.

So, I've been mildly excited for this movie. I haven't played the video games, but I'm a fan of the concept. And anything that involves Parkour is cool. And then I started hearing the relatively positive reviews and got a bit more excited. Though despite the reviews being positive, they were only mildly so, with ratings around the 3-3.5 out of 5 range. But hey, that's at least entertaining, right? Right.

The movie follows the story of Dastan (Jake Gyllenhaal), who started out as an orphan but is adopted by the Persian king, thus becoming a prince of Persia. But with his street-based childhood, he has some street cred and knows how to move about (Aladdin-ish). Well, after getting some news that a major city might be selling weapons to Persia's enemies, Dastan, his brothers, and his uncle (Ben Kingsley) are forced to invade them. In the process, Dastan discovers a mystical dagger that has the ability to turn back time, which is guarded by the city's princess, Tamina (Gemma Arterton). But after Dastan is accused of murdering his father, he is forced to leave with Tamina on a quest to figure out who was really behind his father's death, as well as discovering the secrets of the dagger. The movie also features Alfred Molina as a shifty entrepreneur who dabbles with... ostrich racing.

Overall, some parts of this movie are better than others. This movie was pimped out to be the next big "Pirates of the Caribbean." What I loved most about the PotC films, besides the quirky Captain Jack, were the imaginative fight sequences. And this movie had a lot of potential for imaginative fight sequences, what with the video game's basis in parkour and instant time travel. And I felt, for the most part, this potential was wasted. There's maybe one or two scenes that utilized these things well (primarily the parkour), but that's about it. But the scenes that do utilize these things are pretty cool.

The acting is decent, with the witty banter of Dastan and Tamina stealing the scenes. Dastan was a pretty fun character, and Gemma Arterton is absolutely gorgeous. Oh, and her character is decent, too, playing a strong female lead. Alfred Molina really hammed it up, and his character walked the line between funny and bizarrely annoying. There were some moments where he was funny, but the character overall was just strange, and the whole ostrich thing felt out of place. As for the other characters, the smaller roles (like the brothers) were a bit rough. They were flatly written and--sometimes--poorly acted. And Ben Kingsley was just kinda in it for the paycheck, I think.

Which leads me into the script itself. You can tell there are some very video game moments (puzzles, etc.). And those are pretty cool. But there is some pretty rough dialogue that is so forced, so stilted, so bad... I wonder how it even stayed past the rough draft of the script. Luckily, these moments are few and far between, but when they show up (especially around the beginning), they really stick out.

I know this review seems negative, but I didn't dislike the movie. It was actually pretty entertaining, and I can agree with all those other reviews that put it in that middle ground. It's not great, but it's fun, and it's a decent way to spend about 2 hours. Sure, you pretty much see everything coming a mile away, but the journey is still an entertaining one. And isn't that what summer blockbusters are all about?


Stop Saying Okay! Okay.

(P.S. And that's a strong rating... it was a tough choice between this and the next highest rating, but overall I thought this one was more suitable.)