By Michael Avila
Special to DNAinfo
MANHATTAN — Call him the Magic Man.
With a twinkle in his eye and magic in his hands, Nicolas Cage casts an entertaining spell in "The Sorcerer's Apprentice," an engaging all-ages adventure that benefits from some of Manhattan’s own magic.
The film reunites Cage with director Jon Turtletaub and producer Jerry Bruckheimer, the brain trust behind the blockbuster "National Treasure” series. They’re clearly hoping to find another theatrical hit with this movie, based on the famous sequence from Disney’s 1940 classic, "Fantasia.” While the finished product comes up well short of the superior "National Treasure” movies, "The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” still has a lot going for it.
For one, there’s the clever back story, which involves a centuries-long feud between dueling orders of magicians, the Merlinians and the Morganians. As with all Bruckheimer productions, the plot of the film is laid out in clear tones right from the start, thanks to a helpful narrator.
The Macguffin in the movie is, of course, of the world-destroying variety. An evil threatens to cut loose an army of zombie soldiers and the only person who can prevent the evil Morgana from destroying the world is the "Prime Merlinian."
That person turns out to be an NYU science nerd named Dave, played with twitchy charm by Jay Baruchel. Before you know it, he’s working on his spells and incantations. Cage’s magical Mr. Myagi to Baruchel’s dorky Daniel is the glue that keeps the film together.
Family movies aren’t usually his speed, but as Balthazar, a 600-year-old steampunk sorcerer trying to pass on the voodoo that he do, Cage delivers his most normal, mainstream performance in years.
As the villain Horvath, Alfred Molina does what he always seems to do — steals the movie every time he’s onscreen. His wicked sneer and dapper attire enliven every confrontation with Cage’s character.
Here the plot falters a bit. The actors are really forced to earn their pay because they are constantly undercut by the repetitive story. Balthazar and Horvath are given little to do by the screenwriters besides battling against each other.
Also, the re-enactment of the quintessential animated segment from "Fantasia" is strangely flat. Bruckheimer’s films are typically well edited, but this sequence misses the mark.
Manhattan becomes the battleground for the wizards, and the filmmakers wisely went off the beaten path for locations to provide a proper urban contrast to the supernatural storyline. "The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” takes the audience from Chinatown to the Upper West Side, bypassing the usual locales featured in most movies set in the Big Apple.
Balthazar’s magic shop, the Arcana Cabana, is inside a TriBeCa townhouse on cobble stoned White Street.
Chinatown hosts a sequence where a dragon is conjured up out of nowhere. The Apthorp, the famous West End Avenue apartment house, gets its moment in the sun too (Take that, Dakota!). Instead of Central Park, we see Battery Park and Washington Square Park. The movie’s climactic moment happens in Bowling Green.
The Chrysler Building gets some Hollywood love as well, as do its famous Art Deco eagles. They come alive, literally, as does Wall Street’s famous bull.
Even when the inevitable visit to Times Square occurs, it's during a thrilling car chase that involves transforming cars and mirrors that access parallel dimensions.
The Times Square sequence was at the center of two accidents while the movie was in production last year, conjuring up talk about the film being cursed. Two separate car crashes in three days injured several stuntmen and innocent bystanders. There was also an explosion gaffe during one of the Chinatown scenes.
However, the "The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” appears to have found the right spell to reverse the curse, producing an energetic, family-friendly romp.
Nicolas Cage, a PG movie star? Now that’s a magic trick.