Jakarta, July 30, 2010

Vashti Trisawati Abhidana

In “The Sorcerer Apprentice”, it needs a thousand years to find the best wizard apprentice and it’s Balthazar Blake’s (Nicolas Cage) missions to find the right one. Whoever wears the dragon ring, fits perfectly in his/her finger and the important part is the dragon sculpting “feels” comfortable on it, than voila… he or she will be the next powerful sorcerer, named the Prime Merlinean. Actually Balthazar Blake is one of Merlin’s disciples. Together with Victoria (Monica Bellucci) and Maxim Hovarth (Alfred Molina) they are the trio wizard masters. However Hovarth chooses to cross into the dark side and together with his new witch master, Morgana, kills Merlin.

Before Merlin passed away, he handed the dragon ring to Balthazar and said that only the Prime Merlinean can defeat Morgana. Nevertheless the battle continues and Veronica gives her body and soul to tie Morgana and trap this evil witch into a similar ‘babushka’ Russian nesting wooden doll. This doll is getting bigger every time when Balthazar defeats evil sorcerers, including Maxim Hovarth.

This linear story about good and evil wizards is easy to digest. “It’s a story about two quests,” explains Bruckheimer. “Balthazar has been searching the world through the centuries for his apprentice, and Dave then has to discover his true potential as a human being,” he added. Various visual effects and CGI are entertaining and well made. There’s no differences between Nicolas Cage as Balthazar in this movie or as Ben Gates in “National Treasure”. This is his seventh time collaboration with Jerry Bruckheimer as the producer. Only his appearance make the difference:  the hobo-grungy looking who owns a curio shop, with tons of curses creepy treasures. However through this antique shop, Balthazar meets Dave Stutler (Jay Baruchel), a fourth grade boy, who tries to catch his love note from Becky Barnes (Teresa Palmer) during his field trip with his schoolmates. After a brief chat, Baltahazar offers the dragon ring to him.

This ordinary fourth grade dorky boy, stuns when the dragon ring fits and stays put in his finger. Balthazar is so relieve to have ‘the one’ who will defeat Morgana. In the middle of persuading Dave to be his apprentice, the wooden doll is unexpectedly broken then Maxim Hovarth appears. Balthazar and Hovarth try to cream and struggle each other to catch the babushka doll. Hovarth wants to release Morgana and demolish the world; on the other hand Balthazar wants to protect it from his wicked friend.

Ten years later, Dave is still the unpopular, nerdy, and absentminded guy. He creates his own world by inventing music-lightning machine in the underground subway wreckage. Jay Baruchel’s role as Dave Stutler reminds me when he was the guest star in one “Numbers” TV series. He played as the whiz kid who could predict the best batter and player of baseball games based on his formula.

Unconditionally when he teaches physics in the classroom, he meets Becky Barnes again. Besides as a student at New York University, Becky is also works as a DJ in her campus radio station. Afterward we can see Dave’s journey between impressing Becky through his inventor and learn the fast way to be the Prime Merlinean.

This movie is a modern Harry Potter sorcerer type and John Turteltaub, the director, portrays Hovarth wickedness without being scary at all.  This evil sorcerer rides an ultra modern car and wears flamboyant wardrobes, and matches with his apprentice, Drake Stone (Tobby Kebbel), a modern punk-devilish opportunistic illusionist who leaves in his tacky-gold apartment. As we understand Disney’s approach is always entertaining without any violent and sadistic visual graphic.

Probably the interesting part is that all kind of magic in a modern world will always related with physics, which we wouldn’t see in Harry Potter. The verdict? If you just want to ease your head, and don’t want to think heavily, “The Sorcerer Apprentice” definitely will entertain you. At least you won’t get irritated after you leave the cinema.