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The Sorcerer's Apprentice
[Blu-ray]
Blu-ray ALL - America - Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment Review written by and copyright: Jeremiah Chin (17th January 2011). |
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The Film
 Judd Apatow has the midas touch when it comes to his young actors. Almost everyone from his earlier shows have enjoyed future successes, instead of being simply reduced to where are they now Wikipedia searches. Lately it’s been Jay Baruchel all over the place, lending his fairly monotonous voice to and talents to a slew of projects from romantic comedies to the most recent “The Sorceror’s Apprentice” (2010) that has him romping around with Nicolas Cage in a live action interpretation of the infamous scene from “Fantasia” (1940). Bringing along Jon Turtletaub from the “National Treasure” series (2004-2011), Cage and Baruchel try to bring a sense of playfulness from “National Treasure” to a different film with aspirations of turning it into another profitable franchise. In the time of Merlin (James A. Stephens), Balthazar (Nicolas Cage) is one of three apprentices to the ultimate wizard, fighting against an evil sorceress Morgana (Alice Krige), only to have one of the disciples Horvath (Alfred Molina) turn on Merlin to work for Morgana. The third apprentice Veronica (Monica Bellucci) manages to imprison Morgana’s soul in her body, which Balthazar then puts in the Grimoire, along with Horvath, to keep them from destroying the world. Hundreds of years pass as Balthazar looks alone for the Prime Merlinian who will be able to defeat Morgana once and for all. Unfortunately it winds up being a physics nerd named Dave (Jay Baruchel). For all the magic as science babble that would have the Insane Clown Posse ranting about miracles for the next twenty something years, the movie had potential in its setup, all up until it went to Jay Baruchel’s grating, annoying acting. There are times when his regular voice shines through, but somehow he thinks it’s a great idea to turn it into a whining, nerdy performance that is genuinely disrupting to the entirety of the movie. For all the talk of turning "Fantasia" into real life, it does nothing more than just transmute the story into a highly annoying series of converstaions involving Baruchel, while Cage phases in and out of unintentional hilarity to just plain boredom, even while kissing Monica Bellucci (a feat few other actors could accomplish). As much as Turteltaub managed to succeed in the “National Treasure” movies, presenting some light fare that only tried to entertain over its runtime, he somehow manages to take the lighthearted action sensibilities to a low in the movie. Add to that one of the more plodding, poorly written, scripts that have come out of Disney’s live action stockpiles and you have a movie that doesn’t particularly try to be anything more than a big budget effects time manipulator, drawing audiences in for a little over an hour and a half. But really this doesn’t even work as the bad jokes, like the dog farts, or Baruchel’s voice that is destined to enrage many, can’t pull the screenplay into anything remotely compelling. And that’s mostly due to pace, where “National Treasure” managed to pace something towards its ultimate conclusion, the movie seems more self-obsessed in its own conceit of magic, rather than telling a full story. All the love sub-plots fall flat, as do any of the Merlin mythos that could have been fun, instead we get the Baruchel boredom hour (and a half). But for all the negative things, I have to credit the casting director for acknowledging that if you’re going to have a female villain, there are few better than Alice Krige who has impressed since her turn as the Borg Queen in “Star Trek: First Contact” (1996), she does a fair job in the two scenes she is in as Morgana. Even Monica Bellucci isn’t brought in for more than a couple of scenes, underutilizing two potential female leads that could have had their talents better realized, but letting them only be peeked in the opening and in the conclusion of the film. Add on to that one of the most annoying additional soundtracks, featuring some terrible romantic comedy styled alternative rock music, and you have an overall annoying presentation of a movie that had me willing to buy in after hating everything I saw in the trailers. Exploring more on the Merlin and magical mythos could have served the movie better, or just grabbing some different writers and a better actor than Baruchel would have done wonders for the movie. Even if it was just getting him to stop using the voice he plays up in the film, could have saved me the pain, but unfortunately it all happened and was all too real, there were no miracles. Instead we have a plodding, uninspired, light action movie that thinks far too much of itself without letting the actually fun aspects of the film run wild.
Video
Presented with Disney’s quality standards the film comes through in full 1080p 24/fps with AVC MPEG-4 encoding and a 2.40:1 aspect ratio that actually looks nice in the transfer. All of the fog effects and digital effects become a little obvious, but in a movie featuring ridiculous amounts of magic, the general fakeness in the appearances of magic is alright. But for all the polish, the directing lacks any depth, though it does a fair job of moving in the action, it at time can focus too much on the digital effects that become cheapened after focusing on them for too long.
Audio
The main audio track comes in the English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track mixed at 48kHz/24-bit, which again has a lot of polish and movment to the soundtrack. All the sound effects like wizard flares and explosion noises come through well, but when the film starts out with “The Middle” by Jimmy Eat World, you know that you’re in for a punishing soundtrack. The actual theatrical score suits the mood of the film well, and keeps the action paced, keying in at the right moments and with all the levels balancing properly. But what the added songs, like “The Middle,” are a supreme annoyance. There’s also an English Descriptive Video Service Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo track along with French and Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1 tracks. There are also English, for the hearing impaired, French and Spanish subtitles. The disc even comes with D-Box encoding if you’re one of the select few who own a D-Box system and actually want to watch the “Sorceror’s Apprentice.”
Extras
Another one of Disney’s 2-disc combo sets, but with the majority of the special features weighted on the first Blu-ray, with none featurettes, five deleted scenes, outtakes, promos, and general Disney bonus trailers as well as a second disc featuring a DVD copy of the film. DISC ONE: BLU-RAY The first featurette is “Magic in the City” which runs for 12 minutes and 53 seconds, a behind-the-scenes style clip that talks with Jerry Bruckheimer, Turteltaub, Cage, and the rest of the gang of producers. Cage sounds more ridiculous talking seriously about the movie than he does in it, but it might be worth it to hear Cage talk, with a deeply serious expression, about sorcerer wars. Going behind-the-scenes on different sets and city areas in New York as they are incorporated into the general story of the film, the featurette explores the cuts between the city streets and soundstages along with some of the practical effects before everything went digitized. “The Science of Sorcery” featurette runs for 10 minutes and 15 seconds, dealing with the film’s connection of science and magic as the same gang of actors and producers. Cage goes into his own little Arthur C. Clarke rant on science appearing as magic, but in general it’s more behind-the-scenes work with a bored sounding Cage explaning magic, while there’s a good exploration of the special effects work in the featurette too. Some good before, after and during practical and digital effects shots, mixed in with ridiculous footage of the actors acting out the effects that is just about as funny as it winds up being with effects as shown in the film. “Making Magic Real” featurette runs for 11 minutes and 46 seconds, building more on the discussions of magic and practical magic effects done in the movie. I appreciate Turteltaub’s insistence on practical effects in many of the sequences of the film, even if some of the digital plates thrown on top make everything look like there was no practical work done. “‘Fantasia:’ Reinventing a Classic” featurette runs for 10 minutes and 13 seconds, where every actor from the film reminisces about the "Fantasia" sequence, while also doing some extra promotional work towards the “Fantasia” Blu-ray release. There are some comparison shots of how they went from "Fantasia" to the practical effects in the sequence, using tons of greenscreen suit people and everyone talking up how classic “Fantasia” is. It’s a nice production clip again, but runs a little long. “The Fashionable Drake Stone” featurette runs for 2 minutes and 9 seconds, Bruckheimer, Toby Kebbell and Michael Kaplan, the costume designer, talk about creating the look of Drake Stone (Kebbell) based off of some Vegas magicians, as well as a full twenty seconds spent on his four inch platform shoes. “The Grimhold: An Evil Work of Art” featurette runs for 3 minutes and 46 seconds, Baruchel, Bruckheimer and the rest of the major players in the film, along with production designer Naomi Shohan discuss creating the Grimhold and the effects work done for each emergence from the nesting doll. “The Encantus” featurette runs for 2 minutes and 23 seconds, this time it’s the guidebook for sorcerers and a discussion of how it was put together and how it was artistically put together. There’s some good levels of details on the encantus, based on Turteltaub’s own history of dealing with ancient books in “National Treasure” as well as the graphic designers and calligraphers to construct the actually nice looking tome. “Wolves & Puppies” featurette runs for 3 minutes and 7 seconds, this little clip deals with the sequence at the train station where the wolves turn into puppies, mostly focusing on how cute all the animals are and how they kept falling asleep on the set. “The World’s Coolest Car” featurette runs for 1 minute and 32 seconds, dealing with Nicolas Cage’s 1930’s Rolls-Royce for closeup shots as well as building a frame version of the car to be driven around for stunts. Next up are all the deleted scenes, five in all, running in total for 7 minutes and 47 seconds: - “A Candidate in Calcutta” runs for 1 minute and 10 seconds, Balthazar visits Calcutta to try and find the Prime Merlinian, as shown partially in the opening of the film. - “A Model Student” runs for 1 minute and 11 seconds, Dave shows off conductivity in the Physics 101 class. - “Balthazar Recruits Dave” runs for 1 minute and 58 seconds, Balthazar shows up to convince Dave about training more for sorcery. - “Oh No, It’s Andre” runs for 1 minute and 58 seconds, Dave studies with Becky, and is interrupted by Andre where he is teased. - “Man’s Best Friend” runs for 1 minute and 22 seconds, Tank the dog sits in Balthazar’s car, while Dave investigates and is spurned by the dog, who farts. But of course there’s an outtakes reel that runs for 3 minutes and 14 seconds, lots of laughs and especially flubbed scenes during the larger special effects sequences, but mostly weird noises made by Jay Baruchel and some Nicolas Cage laughter. “Discover Blu-ray 3D with Timon and Pumba” promo runs for 4 minutes and 23 seconds where the characters from “Lion King” (1994) explain how important it is that you buy a 3D TV. There’s also a menu option called “Info” clip that runs for 5 seconds and gives just the legal jargon necessary to absolve Disney of any problems with the opinions contained on the special features. Odd that it’s optional, but it’s there. Bonus trailers on the disc are for: - “Disney Blu-Ray 3D” which runs for 1 minute and 25 seconds. - “Tron: Legacy” which runs for 2 minutes and 34 seconds. - “Beverly Hills Chihuahua 2” which runs for 2 minutes and 1 second. - “Disney Movie Rewards” runs for 19 seconds. - “A Christmas Carol” runs for 1 minute and 17 seconds. - “Phineas and Ferb: Across the 2nd Dimension ” runs for 22 seconds. - “Disney Nature: African Cats” runs for 1 minute an 38 seconds. - “Fantasia and Fantasia 2000” runs for 1 minute and 17 seconds. - “Alice in Wonderland: 60th Anniversary Edition” runs for 48 seconds. - “The Incredibles” runs for 1 minute and 17 seconds. - “The Lion King: Diamond Edition” runs for 1 minute and 22 seconds. DISC TWO: DVD This is the DVD that lacks most of the special features from the Blu-ray edition, but still has the “Making-of” featurette, the deleted scene “Balthazar Recruits Dave,” along with the advertisements for “Discover Blu-ray 3D with Timon & Pumba” and the unique “Dylan & Cole Sprouse: Blu-Ray is Suite!” promo which runs for 4 minutes and 45 seconds. Bonus trailers on the disc are for: - “Disney Blu-ray” runs for 1 minute and 8 seconds. - “Tron: Legacy” runs for 2 minutes and 30 seconds. - “Beverly Hills Chihuahua 2” runs for 2 minutes and 1 second. - “A Christmas Carol” runs for 1 minute and 17 seconds. - “Disney Movie Rewards” runs for 20 seconds. - “Disney Nature: African Cats” runs for 1 minute and 41 seconds. - “Phineas and Ferb: Across the 2nd Dimension” runs for 22 seconds. - “Fantasia and Fantasia 2000” runs for 1 minute and 20 seconds. - “Alice in Wonderland: 60th Anniversary Edition” runs for 49 seconds. - “The Incredibles”: runs for 1 minute and 17 seconds. - “The Lion King: Diamond Edition” runs for 1 minute and 23 seconds.
Packaging
Packaged in a 2-disc Blu-ray keep case housed in a cardboard slip-case.
Overall
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