Review: The Sorcerer's Apprentice (2010)

I never appreciated Disney's Fantasia (1940) when I first saw it because I didn't understand what it was all about; there was no clear plot that a kid could latch onto, unlike the other Disney animations. However, I liked Mickey Mouse's segment, "The Sorcerer's Apprentice". The dancing brooms and buckets reminded me somewhat of Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, and Snow White (well, the dark and grisly trees, really).

The mops' dance

The 2010 retelling of "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" provided the context I needed to understand the mops' dance scene: Basically, the sorcerer, Balthazar, finally found Merlin's successor in the form of a physics student, Dave, in current Manhattan (after centuries of searching). Balthazar had to equip Dave with magic and sorcery so that Dave could defeat Morgana le Fay, Merlin's foe. In a hurry to make his lab more presentable, Dave decided to use some magic early in his training; he, however, wasn't totally in control yet. Mops, buckets, and rags overcame him. The magic spell was broken only when Balthazar took over.

The Sorcerer's Apprentice and other movies
Something about the movie brought to mind similarities with the National Treasure series. Perhaps because the cast in both movies were led by Nicolas Cage (Ben Gates in National Treasure, Balthazar Blake in Sorcerer's Apprentice); in both films, he had bumbling sidekicks Riley (Justin Bartha, National Treasure) and Dave (Jay Baruchel, The Sorcerer's Apprentice); and the two movies were directed by Jon Turtletaub and produced by Jerry Bruckheimer.

The reference to apprenticeships, I think, paralleled with the Star Wars Jedi training series: Qui-Gon Jinn trained Obi-Wan Kenobi who then trained Anakin Skywalker. Although Dave was not shown to have  become evil at some point, it was certainly mentioned that he was the Prime Merlinian ("the Chosen One"?).

Which apprentice?
Then there's the title. At the beginning of the film, I thought that the movie's title was referring to Dave. A few hours after watching it, though, I started to change my mind. The title wasn't referring to Dave (who's the Prime Merlinian); instead, I think that the title was referring to Merlin's loyal apprentice Balthazar Blake. It was actually him who's fighting against Maxim Horvath (the other apprentice, who sided with Morgana le Fay; portrayed by Alfred Molina), not Dave.

In the end, both apprentices got their happy endings... and they saved the world from the wrath of Morgana.