The Sorcerer's Apprentice: If You Don't Expect Too Much, It's Really Kind of Awesome

First off, I walked into Sorcerer’s Apprentice with zero expectations of quality. I had not somehow fooled myself into thinking that this movie would have any meaning, or weight, or be anything besides a very pretty piece of fluff. I wanted exactly three things from this movie:

1. ridiculous overuse of CGI and set pieces,
2. Nicolas Cage being his damn crazed self, and
3. Jay Baruchel, who is currently topping my Inexplicable Crush list.

I didn’t want to think. I didn’t want to be confused or to learn any moral more complex than something you’d get out of an early Adam Sandler movie (Stay in school! Love your grandmom!). I wanted to enjoy myself while knowing what was coming five steps ahead and saying the lines with the actors as they were spoken, because of course that’s the next line! That’s always the next line!

And holy shit did this movie deliver. I’ll tell you the plot, but really I don’t have to. No, really. Just think about what a quasi-children’s movie called The Sorcerer’s Apprentice would be about. Go ahead, I can wait. Got it? Okay, let’s see how you did. Give yourself a point for every point below you totally called:

• Nic Cage is Balthazar, a sorcerer looking for – wait for it – an apprentice.
• But not just any apprentice! The Prime Merlinian (I shit you not, that's what it's called), the bestest, shiniest, most ass kickingest sorcerer the world has ever seen since…
• Merlin, the sorcerer Nic Cage was apprentice to (because fucking of course Merlin is involved somehow), got his crinkly ass stabbed by...
• Horvath, another one of Merlin’s apprentices (bonus points if you called he would have a stupid name). Because Merlin actually had…
• Three apprentices! Balthazar, Horvath, and Veronica, and…
• Both Balthazar and Horvath were totes in love with Veronica, but…
• Veronica only loved Balthazar and gave Horvath the medieval brush off which is why…
• Horvath betrayed Merlin to his arch enemy and rival… 
• Morgana, the most evil sorceress in all the land! Seriously, like, snacking on babies and talking on her cell phone in the theater evil. And she wants…
• To destroy the world and rule whatever’s left with a well manicured fist! But…
• Veronica sacrifices herself to stop Morgana and the two of them end up in something called a grimhold, which…
• Balthazar has carried around with him ever since instead of firing that shit into the sun like a rational human being, because it holds his beloved! And he can’t do anything about it, anyway, because, naturally…
• Only the Prime Merlinian can stop Morgana. So he gets to traipse around all of creation carrying the chick who killed his father figure and trapped his girlfriend, looking for the punk that can actually unload this shit for him. Sucks to be Balthazar, that’s all I’m saying. But who is this Prime Merlinian?
• Jay Baruchel! Or Dave Stutler, rather, an NYU physics student with a love for science, a set piece lab filled with Tesla coils in an old subway turnaround (because in New York they had those out like candy) and – we can safely guess – his virginity intact. But that’s okay, because…
• DAVE IS SECRETLY THE BESTEST, SHINIEST, MOST ASS KICKINGEST PRIME MERLINIAN HOLY SHIT I DID NOT SEE THAT COMING…
• And at first he’s scared! But…
• Then he starts doing fucking magic and conjuring up Flaming Balls of Death and he is totally stoked now, you guys, and…
• He gets a super awesome dragon ring which he needs to do all of his magic until he, like, sorts his chi or something and figures out how to do magic WITHOUT the ring which only the Prime Merlinian can do…
• So now that he’s all super fucking awesome, but still cute in a wibbly sort of way, he’s totally going to get the blonde coed who does yoga and has her own show on college radio…
• Which is good timing, because here comes Horvarth! And…
• Because Dave still sucks at this whole magic thing, everything goes to shit in a matter of days and Morgana is released, so it’s good timing with the coed because…
• We need a damsel in distress up in here, yo…
• So Dave gives up his magic sorcerer’s ring to save the plucky blonde coed and all looks lost, but…
• HE HAS A PLAN OMFG WHAT IS GOING TO HAPPEN NEXT…
• The plan almost fails! All is almost lost! If only he has his ring…
• HOLY SHIT HE JUST DID MAGIC WITHOUT HIS RING HE REALLY IS THE PRIME MERLINIAN I AM GOING TO DIE FROM EXCITEMENT.
• But Balthazar has died! Woe!
• But now with magic and determination he has been brought back and has been reunited with the tart that kind of started it all! Huzzah!
• Fade out on Dave and the plucky coed making out to some current band I don't recognize.

I expect everyone got a perfect score, so I won’t be checking your tests.

…
The movie is predictable, is what I’m saying.

But it was still a whole lot of fun. Cage gets to try out his Soft Spoken brand of crazy and comes off like your crazy uncle your mom doesn’t want you to be left alone with, not because he’s a pervert, but because she might come back and find him teaching you how to throw knives at your kid sister. He’s also funny, and not in a Wicker Man “bees in my eyes!” kind of way, but in a legitimate, a writer wrote that and he made it funny kind of way.

Not just the funniest thing Nic Cage has said...the funniest thing anyone has ever said.

I know a lot of people find Jay Baruchel annoying as fuck, and clearly if he’s on my Inexplicable Crush list, than I’m not entirely sold on boyfriend, either. I’m not sure, but I think it might be the hair.

Gun to my head and I can't explain why I find this attractive.

Anyway, I enjoyed him in the movie. He’s like a squinty eyed puppy, all earnest and nervous and shit. And he plays this man-child role so well I’m pretty sure it’s just him being him (Which, actually, is how I imagine Nicolas Cage has interpreted every character he’s done in the past six years, too.). Theresa Palmer as the plucky coed bugged the shit out of me, but only because she looks like Kristen Stewart.

The story did stray from the main ‘fill in the blank’ script it was using a few times. Plucky Coed actually has an active role in the final confrontation instead of just being saved and then punted into the background. Dave saves the day using both magic and science. Kind of like if, at the end of Harry Potter, if Harry had just tossed the Dursleys at Voldemort in quick succession, crushing him.

I will buy this movie. It’s something to have on in the background on a Saturday while I’m puttering around the apartment pretending to clean it. It’s fun and it’s quirky and it’s not challenging. It can sit right next to Pirates of the Carribbean and Nic Cage and Johnny Depp can have a Crazy Death Match. Depp may be a superior actor, but Cage is, you know, actually crazy, so I've got money on him.



Oh! God, I almost forgot. They actually put a ‘I can’t control these mops!’ scene in the movie. I know, right? I would have thought they would have avoided that like the plague. And yet, instead they went the other way and just went it at full bore, balls to the wall. They even used the same damn music. And…it worked. I’m not saying it’s Shakespeare, but I laughed.

THIS IS AN ACTUAL THING THAT WAS FILMED. THIS IS AN ACTUAL THING THAT IS HAPPENING.