Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Movie Review: The Sorcerer's Apprentice

"Pirates of the Caribbean" was such a huge success that Disney made sequels. To be fair, Disney makes sequels of stuff that was bad, too. It's all they really know. "Pirates 4" is filming, you know. But, besides sequels they tried adapting some of their other properties to film. But, "Pirates" was nothing like the amusement park ride. They had to gut and rebuild the ride to match. Some might realize that it was the movie, not the ride, that was the success. But not Disney. Instead they went on to make "The Haunted Mansion". It's a ride, "Pirates" was a ride, it has to work. Besides, it stars the guy who did the voice of Donkey in "Shrek". I would have thought someone would get fired over that. Someone probably did, but not the person making decisions. He was still around to say, "Now let's make The Sorcerer's Apprentice a whole movie." He lucked out. It wasn't another "Pirates", but it sure as hell wasn't "Mansion".

There is scene that pays homage to that one Mickey Mouse cartoon that could be called entertaining. And if you sit through the credits you'll see a wee bit more. The rest of the movie is it's own thing. There's lots of action and magic. The story is mostly good. There's a place or three where I got the impression that someone else stepped in to fiddle with the script. "We don't like that bit. What if, instead, he..." sort of thing.

The movie opens long ago. Merlin has three apprentices. There's a falling out. One is given the task of finding Merlin's replacement. 1300 years later he does. It's some kid. Ten years later that kid is a college age physics nerd with a great lab space. He has to accept who he is, learn magic, save the world from the horde of zombie magicians, and get the girl in less than a week.

I recommend this movie. The really little kid (two-ish?) two seats over from me handled it well. But I still wouldn't recommend it for someone that young. I probably won't get it on DVD. But it is a fun movie.

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