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This will go into a few spoilers, so if you haven’t seen The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, just stick with Fantasia.

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.

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