It is too soon after Percy Jackson And The Lightning Thief for more magical goings on in New York, which is perhaps one reason why The Sorcerer’s Apprentice has done underwhelming business at the American box office.
Another reason is the gleeful disregard for plausibility. At one point, titular apprentice Dave Stutler (Jay Baruchel), who discovers he is the “Prime Merlinian”– the true heir to Merlin’s magic – is driven through a reflection and enters a mirror image world. It is one without any traffic. And this is supposed to be downtown Manhattan. In another scene, Dave’s fourth grade sweetheart (Teresa Palmer) breaks into a skyscraper, climbs onto the roof and is able to interfere with a large satellite dish. Where is security when you need it?
That Merlin’s bloodline can be traced to a 20-year-old physics nerd makes no sense – there has got to be another Merlinian in Dave’s family. The most magical thing about the film is that Dave is able to live and study in New York without additional income. That’s got to be some scholarship.
In spite of stretching disbelief to sagging point, the second Jerry Bruckheimer blockbuster of the summer is a good deal more entertaining than the first, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. This is thanks to the chemistry between Baruchel and Nicolas Cage as Balthazar Blake, the titular sorcerer.
Cage does not play him as a father figure, rather as a slightly over-the-hill rock guitarist teaching a new kid some licks. He does not look like he has spent 1,270 years searching for the rightful wearer of Merlin’s serpent ring; rather five summers waiting for a Marillion reunion.
As the archetypal self-aware weakling, Baruchel is a good foil. Dave is the kind of kid who thinks that parallel bars are two rival pubs on either side of the street. In short, Baruchel is typecast from She’s Out of Your League. Nevertheless, you feel he is genuinely learning stuff from Cage, such as how to headline movies without being a conventional leading man.
Alfred Molina as arch nemesis Maxim Horvath and Toby Kebbell as a television magician-cum-sidekick round out the cast. Alice Krige turns up as Morgana Le Fay, trapped in a set of Russian dolls that Balthazar just happened to have devised in 740 AD Britain. Did I say that logic takes a summer vacation?
Kristin Scott-Thomas expresses middle-class anguish par excellence as Suzanne, a sexually awakened Anglo-French housewife in writer and director Catherine Corsini’s romantic drama, Leaving.
Suzanne leaves her husband Samuel (Yvan Attal) and two spoilt teenage kids for Spanish handyman and ex-convict Ivan (Sergi Lopez). At least, she tries to. The unsympathetically-drawn Samuel won’t let her go, freezing her bank account, forcing her employer out of business and refusing her any reparation for raising his family. For her part, Suzanne takes up fruit picking, trying to find work in a supermarket and selling an expensive watch to a passing motorist when her car runs out of petrol. Ivan cannot bear to watch her do manual labour – except in the bedroom.
In France, Scott-Thomas is a liberated treasure. British filmmakers, by contrast, put a scarf over her head. Here, she gives a typically intense and sympathetic performance. You understand completely that Suzanne is an adjunct to her husband, who harbours political ambitions, and kids for whom she is an admirer, hairdresser and cook.
The drama unfolds in taut, logical fashion. However, I did not believe in the last five minutes. Subtlety takes a holiday in the final scene when we hear a police siren – so much for the famous French belle opaque denouement.
