Is one of this summer’s biggest flops among the last of a dying breed?
There’s nothing wrong, necessarily, with the Jerry Bruckheimer-produced Nicolas Cage vehicle The Sorcerer’s Apprentice. Seen as an exercise taken strictly from the summer blockbuster playbook, it’s serviceable in about every possible way. The special effects are pleasing, the storyline is easy to follow, and the requisite romantic subplots are handled capably and without proving themselves dull or distracting from the extravaganza filling the screen. The film’s only real ambition is to make money by entertaining audiences. So what happened?
As Parade‘s list implies, the age of the personality-fueled blockbuster may be over. John Travolta’s From Paris With Love underperformed last winter, and the Tom Cruise-Cameron Diaz adventure Knight and Day has proven itself a banquet of schadenfreude for the press, with reports of its box office demise actually preceding its release. Yet with only a little hindsight, along with The Sorcerer’s Apprentice the three films seem almost quaint, relics from a time when blockbusters didn’t need the pedigree of a comic book or bestselling tween novel to herd audiences towards theatres. (Obviously, Avatar is the 800-pound exception, but its cast of non-stars also exempts it from this dubious company.) It’s not as if the stars themselves are slacking; none of the three films are worse, by and large, from the kind of brain-light flicks that they’ve cranked out for years, to much greater returns.
Travolta and Cruise as spies aren’t so much of a stretch for audience expectations, but The Sorcerer’s Apprentice continues the increasingly weird choices Cage has made for himself since his notorious remake of The Wicker Man five years ago. Cage plays Balthazar, one of three disciples of the wizard Merlin (the one from Camelot) who once led a war against the evil sorceress Morgana le Fay (Alice Krige). Betrayed by the errant student Horvath (Alfred Molina), Merlin and his forces narrowly defeated le Fay by imprisoning her spirit within the body of Balthazar’s love Veronica (Monica Bellucci). Merlin was killed in the confrontation, but for centuries Balthazar has roamed the Earth, searching for the “prime Merlinian” adept who could end the threat of le Fay and her disciples once and for all.
The chosen one turns out to be (only somewhat incredibly) nebbishy Manhattan physics student Dave Stutler (Jay Bauchel). A childhood meeting with Balthazar and Horvath left Dave traumatized and reduced to years of social incompetence and depression, so when Balthazar reappears in his life, following an attack by Horvath, he’s less than enthused about undertaking the training Balthazar insists is critical for the safety of the world. Horvath meanwhile has recruited a Criss Angel pastiche (Toby Kebbell) to act as his own apprentice. Eventually, the good guys triumph over Horvath and le Fay using a combination of Balthazar’s magic and Dave’s superconducting Tesla coils.
Director Jon Turteltaub (National Treasure: Book of Secrets) keeps the story moving most of the time, and the special effects are flashy and exciting without seeming egregious or too intense for younger audiences. There used to be an idea that films could be safe for kids but still entertaining for grown-ups. Hollywood rarely attempts such alchemy of content anymore, which sometimes seems a shame; to its credit, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice usually has such an idea in its largely unoccupied head. But that same open-door policy also makes the film’s tone and mood squirm; in trying to please everyone it might not offer the right level of intensity to anyone. Not a high crime, really, but not an advantage, either.
Whether or not you agree with his loopy film choices, there’s no denying Cage’s commitment to his roles. Here he gives Balthazar the right amount of noble earnestness, and approaches the script’s odder moments with a smirk and a wave of his shaggy hair. Molina does a lot of mustache-twirling as Horvath, finding his character inside its Victorian costuming. We’ve accused Molina before of habitually stealing scenes from his younger co-stars; though that’s not quite the case here, he often comes close. Bellucci wanders into the frame in several scenes; seldom asked to do anything more than look good in her American film appearances, her appearance here is no different. (To be fair, she does look really, really good.)
Less effective are Jay Baruchel as Dave and Reese Witherspoon look-alike Teresa Palmer as the object of his unrequited love. Baruchel’s half-Woody Allen, half-Matthew Broderick nerdishness lacks the inner warmth and charm that made either of those influences appealing despite their tics and hesitations, though his vague air of self-satisfaction recalls Broderick’s less endearing moments. Palmer’s role is stock and under-written besides, and she has little chance to interact with Baruchel in a scene that isn’t about Dave. The script suggests Dave has nursed a crush through middle and high school for the same girl, which hardly seems realistic to say nothing of obsessive.
All of which amounts to a slightly diverting, mildly pleasing summer crate of popcorn that’s pleasing enough, in its own possibly antiquated way. Cage has several more projects lined up, of course, and films like this one and the other major flops mentioned above have for several years now become fodder for the discount DVD bins anyway. They are seldom anyone’s favorite movie, liked but not well-liked, enjoyed and then put away in favor of the next big film bauble coming in the fall or summer. If The Sorcerer’s Apprentice et al. are the last of a dying breed, bemoaning their passing will nevertheless seem hypocritical, since they’re exactly the kinds of films whose proliferation audiences have both supported and bitched about for decades. But their replacements might not be much better: this summer both Iron Man 2 and Jonah Hex disappointed and Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight-follow up Inception couldn’t quite get out from under its own weight. Once the old-fashioned summer blockbusters are gone, will audiences be any better off?
-Michael Kabel
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