What Went Wrong: The Sorcerer's Apprentice
By Shalimar Sahota
January 3, 2012
BoxOfficeProphets.com
The Sorcerer’s Apprentice is a far cry from Goethe’s poem or the Disney short with Mickey Mouse, both of which appeared to tell a tale about meddling in power that one does not understand. While there is a nice homage to the dancing mops in the recent film, it offers no real lesson. This is just working on title recognition.
The idea initially started with Nicolas Cage, who simply wanted to play a sorcerer.
He took his idea to producer Jerry Bruckheimer and Disney (since they owned The Sorcerer’s Apprentice). A chance meeting between Cage and his friend, director Jon Turteltaub, had him being offered the opportunity to direct. It also helped that Turteltaub had worked with Bruckheimer and Disney before, striking success with the National Treasure movies.
The film has five credited writers - Lawrence Konner and Mark Rosenthal are credited with the screen story, as is Matt Lopez who then did a rewrite. Lopez is also listed under screenplay, along with Doug Miro and Carlo Bernard. They could have gone a little dark here (something I initially expected after that teaser trailer), but instead what they delivered plays more like a collection of ticked boxes.
Beginning with a little history, it starts in 740 AD. Balthazar Blake (Nicolas Cage) is one of Merlin’s three apprentices, the other two being Horvath (Alfred Molina) and Veronica (Monica Bellucci). Together they intend to defeat the evil sorceress Morgana (Alice Krige), only to be betrayed by Horvath, who assists her in trying to raise an army of the dead. Veronica and Balthazar arrive just in time; with Veronica absorbing Morgana’s soul into her own body, while Balthazar traps them both inside a Russian doll. As centuries pass, Balthazar also manages to trap Horvath (we never see how) as he searches for Merlin’s successor, the one who can kill Morgana.
Fast-forward to 2000 and the nine-year old David Stutler (Jake Cherry) stumbles into Balthazar’s Arcana Cabana store in New York. Balthazar believes he has finally found The One, however David accidentally opens the doll, releasing Horvath. As Balthazar and Horvath fight, they become sealed inside a mystical Chinese urn for ten years. David is left scarred for life. Ten years later and the grown up David (Jay Baruchel) is a physics student, with a crush on Becky (Teresa Palmer). The Chinese urn with Balthazar and Horvath also blows its lid, and the two of them race to find the doll holding Morgana.
Although Harry Potter leads the way in this department, there has been a glut of wannabee boy wizard type films, with Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightening Thief, and Cirque Du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant being the most recent examples. Looking back, the likes of The Spiderwick Chronicles, The Dark Is Rising and Eragon could apply here as well. Given the competition with films of this type, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice really had to pull out some impressive magic.
The Sorcerer’s Apprentice had a hefty production budget of $150 million. Opening in the US on Wednesday July 14, 2010, it reached #3 on its opening weekend with a take of $17.6 million, behind #1 film Inception and #2 film Despicable Me. It did earn $24.7 million on its opening five days. Spending just three weeks in the US top ten it ended up earning $63.1 million during its run at the US box office. International takings managed to help bail the film out, earning $152.1 million overseas, making for a worldwide gross of $215.2 million. Jerry Bruckheimer and Disney were probably expecting another franchise in the making, and although it wasn’t quite a flop, it didn’t exactly reach the likes of National Treasure or Pirates of the Caribbean, either.
During its release, it seemed that the target audience wasn’t turning up. According to a Reuters report, after its performance over the opening weekend, “about 55% of viewers were aged 25 or older.” Maybe it was an odd occurrence of single children going with both parents? However, it’s worth noting that under 25’s did already have the choice of The Last Airbender, Toy Story 3, and Despicable Me. Twilight: Eclipse was also a possibility.
Part of this could also be attributed to the film’s lead character. Aged 27 when production started, Jay Baruchel is trying to pass for a 19-year-old. There’s certainly nothing wrong with using a guy in his 20s, but the film starts with David as a child before advancing ten years later. I can’t really fathom the purpose for the whole "ten years later" shtick. They might have been better off ditching that and going with child actor Jake Cherry as the young David instead, giving youngsters someone they can closely identify with.
The opening back story is told in such a rush, it obviously can’t wait to get started on the modern day magic malarkey. This is evident when it completely skips on how Balthazar manages to trap Horvath; we’re just told that he does. The story is quite simply a means to hang impressive visual effects on. The majority of the production budget was spent on creating a mixture of computer and practical effects (Alfred Molina’s fingers really are on fire). They do admittedly look gorgeous, with the Hungarian Mirror Trap being a clever highlight, particularly its use during a car chase.
A film where magic is in abundance is limited to the imagination of how it is used and how it is shown. As one can gather (and something a number of the mixed reviews attested to), this is more focused on looking fantabulous rather than telling a meaningful story. I mean, how else does Horvath (who has been locked up inside a doll and an urn most of the time) happen to know the existence of Chinatown? Can any of the writers explain that one?
The main issue is that the film just doesn’t do anything we haven’t already seen before. The down-on-his-luck hero is mentored into mastering his powers. He gets the girl. He saves the day. With nothing new, it’s as cliché as a Disney… oh… right… I see. While there is an audience for this, why would they want to watch something that’s so decidedly average when there’s clearly something better out there? Despite getting edgy with the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy, Disney played it safe with The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, a simple family film, and given the parentage, one shouldn’t really expect anything more. Disney brand or not, I guess it’s asking too much to have a film where the homosexual wizard sacrifices his lover in order to save the world.