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Sorcerer's Apprentice, The
EMAILPRINTWalt Disney Pictures

Mixed or average reviews
Based on 34 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 28 votes
Read user comments
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Movie Info
Genre(s): Action | Adventure | Comedy | Drama | Fantasy
Written by:
Carlo Bernard
Doug Miro
Matt Lopez
Directed by: Jon Turteltaub
Release Date:
Theatrical: July 16, 2010
Running Time: 110 minutes, Color
Origin: USA
Summary
RATING: PG for fantasy action violence, some mild rude humor and brief language
Starring Nicolas Cage, Jay Baruchel, Alfred Molina, Teresa Palmer, Monica Bellucci, and Toby Kebbell
Balthazar Blake is a master sorcerer in modern-day Manhattan trying to defend the city from his arch-nemesis, Maxim Horvath. Balthazar can't do it alone, so he recruits Dave Stutler, a seemingly average guy who demonstrates hidden potential, as his reluctant protégé. The sorcerer gives his unwilling accomplice a crash course in the art and science of magic, and together, these unlikely partners work to stop the forces of darkness. It'll take all the courage Dave can muster to survive his training, save the city and get the girl as he becomes "The Sorcerer's Apprentice." (Walt Disney Pictures)
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database Official Studio Site
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
San Francisco Chronicle Walter Addiego
The Sorcerer's Apprentice boils down to "The Karate Kid" meets "Harry Potter," with maybe a dash of "Ghostbusters" to keep it interesting.
Read Full Review >St. Louis Post-Dispatch Joe Holleman
A tamer tale of supernatural shenanigans that is far more appropriate for young children than the sometimes too-scary scenes from J.K. Rowling's stories.
Read Full Review >Village Voice Nick Pinkerton
Cage will likely not earn a second Oscar here, but he and director Jon Turteltaub (National Treasure) make leftovers into fine PG malarkey with their hokey naïveté and prankish hocus-pocus.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader Cliff Doerksen
The tone is both goofier and darker than the Potter pictures, and some of the magic battles built around New York City landmarks are eye-popping; there's also a genuinely affecting romance between Baruchel and fetching newcomer Teresa Palmer.
Read Full Review >Portland Oregonian M. E. Russell
Turteltaub has a workmanlike touch and an easy sense of humor here, and he and his team do a better-than-expected job of keeping you interested in the story, despite it being yet another Tale of a Reluctant Young Man With A Supernatural Hero's Calling.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman
The Sorcerer's Apprentice is too long, and it's ersatz magic, but at least it casts an ersatz spell.
Read Full Review >Movieline Stephanie Zacharek
Turteltaub strives to show us realistic-looking magic, without realizing he’d be better off if he acknowledged that there’s no such thing. Instead, we get human figures that emerge “magically” from swarms of cockroaches and sorceresses who dissolve into dust particles right before our eyes. It’s the best CGI money can buy, and who cares?
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips
The CGI is relentless and what you might call reverse-magical: The more we're hit with stuff, the less wondrous it becomes.
Read Full Review >New Orleans Times-Picayune Mike Scott
As fun as it is at times -- particularly early on -- the longer The Sorcerer's Apprentice goes on, the more the magic wears off.
Read Full Review >Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
The Sorcerer's Apprentice is a perfectly typical example of its type, professionally made and competently acted.
Read Full Review >Boxoffice Magazine Pete Hammond
Big and brash with a fantasia of battles and chases thrown in to keep the young ones enthralled for its nearly two-hour running time.
Read Full Review >Empire Ian Nathan
Despite Cage in a snit, it’s a likable if functional summer-show.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Joe Neumaier
A frenetic, overstuffed but imaginative fantasy.
Read Full Review >St. Petersburg Times Steve Persall
Baruchel aside, The Sorcerer's Apprentice contains a few minor delights. One is Cage's surprisingly low-key approach to a role that he could be expected to play over the top.
Read Full Review >ReelViews James Berardinelli
The movie isn't so much bad as it is formulaic and uninspired. In some ways, that might almost be a worse sin.
Read Full Review >Time Richard Corliss
Somewhere in recreational value between an afternoon on a San Diego beach and one at a Detroit public swimming pool. Either way, before you know it, it's evening.
Read Full Review >The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Jennie Punter
The lively verbal sparring between the good and evil sorcerer-apprentice pairs sustains the movie, but, with a predictable plot, by-the-numbers action-movie jolts and no real sense of wonder, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice is really just a pumpkin.
Read Full Review >NPR Scott Tobias
The lesson at the core of Goethe's poem -- that powerful spirits are not to be taken lightly, and should only be conjured by those who can control them -- goes out the window, and the mentor-student relationship gets swallowed up in the action. Bruckheimer may be the dark lord of Tinseltown, but he's the Mickey Mouse of this scenario, and the mops and brooms get the best of him.
Read Full Review >Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer
Cage is amusingly skanky, Molina is dependably arch, and Baruchel is engagingly down to earth. But do we really need to watch them play out this exhaustingly empty scenario?
Read Full Review >The New York Times A.O. Scott
While Mr. Molina and Mr. Cage supply a measure of well-compensated eccentricity, their labors ultimately serve to emphasize the grinding mediocrity of the enterprise.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Wesley Morris
A flavorless family-friendly action-adventure that doubles as memory exploitation. It has nothing to do with either the Mickey Mouse broom sequence of the same name from 1940’s “Fantasia’’ or the 213-year-old Goethe poem that inspired it.
Read Full Review >Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey
On the whole, the movie is more Cheez Whiz than wizardly.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club) Tasha Robinson
While both actors have been hammier and more hilarious, and neither one overdoes things enough to be notable, they at least seem to be having loads of flailing fun as they conjure up CGI scenery to chew on. And when Apprentice limits itself to their battle, it’s generally fitful dumb fun.
Read Full Review >The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt
"Apprentice" lurches from one been-there-done-that sequence to another.
Read Full Review >Variety Justin Chang
The magic here feels machine-made and depressingly state-of-the-art.
Read Full Review >Time Out New York David Fear
Other than the Pottersploitation and presence of current It nerd Baruchel, this fantasy-action-comedy might have been spat out into multiplexes any summer over the previous two decades, yet it would seem like forgettable abracadabra filler regardless of the date.
Read Full Review >USA Today Claudia Puig
The movie is a clunky, noisy contraption. Director Jon Turteltaub piles on gadgets and devices in the hopes we'll be dazzled enough to miss the story's lack of coherence and charm.
Read Full Review >Orlando Sentinel Roger Moore
A generally joyless pastiche of sorcery history, imitation Potter “chosen one” Messianics and mirthless silliness, it’s another in a string of recent black marks against Cage’s Oscar-owning reputation.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Michael O'Sullivan
As Balthazar, Cage doesn’t disappoint. He's just manic enough to keep the character from becoming too predictable.
Read Full Review >Premiere John DeVore
This booming, cartoonish confection is a transparent attempt to take a property Disney owns rights to, and to try and create a Harry Potter-like franchise.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten
If there were any brooms in Disney’s new Sorcerer’s Apprentice they would have to be used to sweep this tired dreck to the curb.
Read Full Review >New York Post Kyle Smith
A two-hour trailer: explosion, shape-shift, chase, wisecrack, repeat. Its most amazing trick will be how it vanishes from your memory before the seat you vacate has stopped moving.
Read Full Review >Rolling Stone Peter Travers
Cage and Baruchel work hard to stay accessible, but the computer-generated effects come on like heavy artillery blowing away any hint of flesh and blood. The Sorcerer’s Apprentice should be rated U for Untouched by Human Hands.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 6.4 (out of 10) based on 28 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
dan g. gave it a3:
Where do they find these male leads these days?? jay barawhatever reminds me of the kid in spider man: wimpy. jay has pharynxy, nasal, sinusy voice ... positively put me off my kettlekorn. maybe hollywood is trying to get back to when leading men didn't need looks (edward g robinson, et al)... at least the women are still hot, tho i have some mixt feelings re cursing, increasing displays of cleavage, the f and other questionable initialed words... next time i'm sneaking in some cracker jacks.
Steve Z. gave it an8:
Very nice, entertaining but predictable.
Concerned Moviegoer gave it a1:
Shameless cash-in on the popularity of Harry Potter and the washed-up actor Nicholas Cage. Spare yourself the awfulness and go see something else.
Joshua S gave it an8:
The effects are breath-taking and Nicolas Cage is such a great actor.
Rade M. gave it an8:
My girlfriend, my sister and I really liked this movie, and we are in late twenties. It reminded us of childhood. It has funny moments, not too many slow moments and a predictable story that was told in a good and interesting way. In fact everything we expected from this movie we've got in the end. My sister even asked me if there would be a sequel! :)
Jared C gave it a10:
Without doubt, great.
Almas A gave it a7:
Entertaining, humorous, romantic.
