Sorcerers haunted by Ghostbusters
Magic and evil wreak havoc in New York City? Check.
Decorative, if menacing-looking, solid animals are brought to life? Check.
Beautiful female love interest is possessed by demon spirit? Check.
Our heroes use colourful plasma/ectoplasm to combat stated evil spirits? Check.
There are, perhaps, one too many similarities between the look of The Sorcerer’s Apprentice and the hit 1984 motion picture Ghostbusters.
Both tell the age-old tale of good versus evil: in the first, our heroes are battling black magic and, in the latter, malevolent spirits.
And they do seem to have a very similar way of going about things.
Nicolas Cage is not my favourite actor (I think it’s the earnest’ raised eyebrow look he relies on in every movie), and he doesn’t have almost the same charm as Bill Murray, but he does have a dry wit and a few mood-lightening moments of self-deprecation.
And where would an action comedy be without a reluctant hero? In this case Jay Baruchel is admirable as the geeky physicist battling with a new and terrifying enemy.
Almost as well as Rick Moranis did, in fact.
It must be stated that special effects have come on in leaps and bounds in the 25 years since Ghostbusters hit cinemas.
Impressive as they were at the time, the gargoyles that come to life in Ghostbusters – or the Mr Stay Puft Marshmallow Man, for that matter – are not almost as realistic as the animals in The Sorcerer’s Apprentice.
The steel eagles from the Chrysler Building and the bronze Wall Street bull are terrifyingly real as they swoop and charge around the air space and streets of New York City.
And the blue balls of plasma Cage and Baruchel use to thwart their enemies do look a tiny less like they were drawn in afterwards with a fat green pen, like the green ectoplasm used by the Ghostbusters boys.
All in all, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice may not be entirely original.
As well as borrowing from Ghostbusters, at times it feels like America’s answer to the Harry Potter phenomenon. (Look out for the eighth instalment: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer in the City)
The Sorcerer’s Apprentice is in fact an expanded take on the segment of the same name from Disney’s 1940 Mickey Mouse film Fantasia.
It tells the story of the sorcerer Balthazar (Cage), one of Merlin’s original apprentices, who in 740 AD was given the task of searching for Merlin’s true successor to have any hope of finally killing the evil sorceress Morgana and rescue his trapped love.
That apprentice is science geek Dave (Baruchel) who has girl troubles of his own to worry about in the form of Aussie actress Teresa Palmer (and who sounds disarmingly like the mad scientist character Professor Frink on The Simpsons).
Overall, the film is fun and (sometimes) funny and children will enjoy it.
But it also feels confused – sometimes a romantic comedy, sometimes a hero’s journey, at other times a full-on action blockbuster.
It’s hard to know if our hero is meant to be Dave or Balthazar and there doesn’t seem to be time to fit in both of their stories well.
There was, it seems, time to fit in the famous dancing broom and mop sequence from the original Fantasia.
It’s done really well, and it’s great to see the scene brought to life, but it doesn’t seem to have a place in the film and it sticks out uncomfortably.
For all that it has begged, borrowed and stolen, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice might have lost its way a little.
But for those too young to have ever seen (or be impressed by the special effects in) Ghostbusters, it may be a decent substitute.
The Sorcerer’s Apprentice opens in Australia on September 9.
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Submited at Friday, September 3rd, 2010 at 2:00 pm on Movies by alliana
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