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Movie review!
Sorcerer's Apprentice
Crap, where to start...?
Okay, sure, Merlin had hidden apprentices... no, not Arthur. Other apprentices... and one of them locked Morgan le Fay in an item that can hold souls apparently up to doomsday...? Or until underpowered wizards...'scuse me, sorcerers... come along and unintentionally find the object and bust it open and release Morgan le Fay's pupil, who immediately sets up plans to take over the world in the same way Morgan le Fay was planning, as part of her... shall we say... coming out party?
Eh, might as well tell you... Morgan le Fay is the creamy center in a Russian nesting doll of evil, surrounded by the original Salem Witch, a layer of Chinese martial artist, and then Morgan's pupil, none other than Doctor Octagonopus himself!
Anyway... Nicholas Cage gets tasked by Merlin to find... I shit you not, the 'Prime Merlinian'... which I guess is kind of like the Dalai Lama, as Merlin gives Nick a small pewter dragon, and says the dragon will lead him to this Prime Merlinian, who will of course have the power to destroy Morgan once and for all... Anyone else smelling RPG there?
One thousand years of searching later, our hero, David, walks into Nick's shop, which apparently does NO business, and that's quite alright, as Nick looks a bit crazy (Fun Fact: Nicholas Cage needed no makeup or wardrobe, it was all him...) and I certainly wouldn't buy 'magical' items from him...
Nick sees in David the power Merlin mentioned, and tells David to stay put, and touch nothing, yadda, yadda, blah, blah... imminent death, etc. Nick wanders off, and David somehow finds and releases the aforementioned nesting doll trap, pulls it out of Nick's shop's wall, where it was boarded up a la Cask of Amontillado, and picks it up, and this is the part where I blacked out from my brain hemorrhaging... because David did NOTHING, and the doll split wide open, leaking Alfred Molina as the Cock Roach into the world. Let me repeat that... this magical object that Nick trusts will hold Morgan le Fay until DOOMSDAY just split itself open and released the second greatest evil Nick has ever known because an untested sorcerer just happened to touch it! However, Alfred did right by me for asking David "When am I?" instead of "Where"... so, thumbs up...?
Oh, wait, it gets better... Nick and Alfred fight briefly in this house of 'magical' items, terrorizing our young hero, nay, traumatizing him, and splash a bowl of water on his crotch... (Damnit, someone cue Adam Sandler...) they get sucked into a magical urn that will hold them for ten years, and young David escapes the burning house of doom and crazy and runs into his teacher (oh, by the way, he ran off chasing a note he gave to his grade school crush "Do you like me, check one' Etc... and got separated from the group, and THEN found this shop...) The rest of the class looks on as David claims, hell or high water, that there was a 'couple of pedos in there, burning to death...' as the teacher opens the shop door, and finds nothing disturbed (besides David...) One of his classmates suddenly blurts: "It looks like he peed his pants!" (Adam Sandler...?) Thus begins David's ten years of trauma and therapy and becoming a big geeky loser... (Really? Oh god, ostracism! It's not my fault...) Blah de blah de dah...
"Ten years, to the day"
No, seriously, the screen actually puts that up there...
David is in college and is apparently brainy enough to cover classes for his teachers. Physics teachers, at that... on his birthday... and he runs into his grade school sweetheart by accidentally staring up her skirt as he goes chasing yet another bit of paper. "Oh, hey, I know you..." he cries, thinking that'll absolve him of the guilt of peeking up her skirt...
He teaches class, he follows her to her job as a college station radio disc jockey (Engh... no, not a CD jockey, oh no, Jerry Bruckheimer's old school, so she spins records... THE FUCK? All of the Fuck, not just part...), he fixes her reception problem, as surprise, surprise, David took points in Engineering...
Meanwhile, in a nice, opulent house, an old man walks by a familiar vase as it starts rocking... (If this vase is a rockin'... Nick and Alfred must be setting a homosexual tone for the movie... and now I've gone and creeped myself out) and walks back to stare at it, and argue with his wife about buying junk, and then Alfred pops out of the vase, and asks, "Am I the first one out?" Again, points for knowing the right question, causing old woman to faint, which prompts, "I'll take that as a yes."
Meanwhile meanwhile, Aquaman is sitting at home in the Hall of Justice, because he's damn useless...
I mean, meanwhile meanwhile, David has gone 'home' to his tesla coil project, ever so blatantly hinted at as being the reason he can't go out drinking on his birthday... stupid nerd. (Spoken with a knowing irony...) Oh, but wait, he might have a date with his grade school crush in the next few days.
And then, David runs into Alfred in his apartment, where Alfred berates David for being pedantic about Napoleon... (you see... Alfred was holding on to... never mind...) and sics David's roommate's wolf calendar on David, in an attempt to find the mysterious nesting doll that explodes if you sneeze in its general direction. David runs off to an El train station, where Nick catches up, riding a metallic Eagle of Middle Earth. David and Nick fly off, there's a training montage... Nick just happens to be the Prime Merlinian... I can't even type that with a straight face...
There's some sexual tension between David and his grade school crush (GSC from here out), not to mention a creepy stalker vibe from David. Things happen, there's a scene paying homage to Disney's Other Sorcerer's Apprentice, only, it's mops, and David's not nerdy enough to know that he needs to watch and make sure his spells don't go haywire...
More sexual tension, we find out Nick's other apprentice partner (Victoria, as played by Monica Belucci in a dress...) was the Arthurian times version of GSC, and he LUFFED her very much, and then she trapped Morgan's soul in her body, and he trapped her in the Nesting doll of very small rocks.
And then, a very sudden ray of sunshine happens, very briefly... David brings GSC back to his... train station sewer, and shows off his nerd quotient by playing a song for her on his tesla coils. No, seriously, looks up 'Secret' Tesla coils on Youtube... no, seriously, go watch, then come back here. I'll wait.
Was that not spectacular? Even through all that, there's still something wrong... did you notice he had her grab a metal bar to ground herself...? Not to mention all the high grade electronics in the cage too? Yeah, tesla coils spray EMPs pretty heavily, if I remember correctly...
Anyway...
Sexual tension, fight with Alfred's apprentice du jour... who I am now realizing was supposed to be either Criss Angel or Sigfried after Roy's mauling at tiger's paws... A brief sequence where Nick and David get to drive a car in Mirror world following a continuity error that actually tops the one I posted about in Vantage Point (The amazing repairing car...?) Let me put it this way... Nick's driving, using the British steering system that would befit him being from Britain, and David's on his left... Nick transforms the car to fit America, and suddenly, Nick's driving American style and David's still the passenger, only he's on Nick's right now... There goes my brain again... No, this was BEFORE they went into mirror world.
And then... GSC gets kidnapped, and used as... secondary bait to protect Alfred and the Nesting doll, when Nick and David infiltrate Criss' apartment of magical objects... And then, Morgan gets released, and there's a 'Massive showdown' in Battery Park, which Nick... understandably knows about... having lived in New York forever since it was founded... The big confusion is how Alfred knows about it, and that it might be important... Anyway, it should be noted, Alfred 'killed' all his apprentices on the way to releasing Morgan so he could use their various magic summoning tools (That's crazy in and of itself... apparently, sorcerers can only cast if they have their pendant, or ring or what have you... it's not enough for them to know what magic is... nor for them to die suddenly when Alfred cuts them away from their magic source Anyway, this is the big fuckin' plot point that will make David into the Prime Merlinian, much like Neo in the Matrix, he can do magic without his ring, or will be able to, once the time comes, setting him up for a big damn hero moment...)
Alfred and Nick face off, which ends with Alfred getting his walking stick struck by David's portable tesla coils on Nick's car (Alfred's stick is wood, except for the rings and pendants he wrapped around them... so of course, the tesla coil lightning strike is going to vaporize him...) Nick and David face off against Morgan via Victoria, Nick tries to suck Morgan's soul out of Victoria with a straw... nah, it was a spell hinted at earlier... it works, briefly, but Morgana 'materializes' in much the same way the sand things do in Prince of Persia... not really solid, but still powerful... and she shoots Nick in the chest with a plasma bolt (No, seriously, Nick told us during training what those were) Nick goes down, and David steps up, hard, creating a magic shield without his ring (or, rather, Merlin's ring...) and suddenly, everything is green ones and zeroes (I think I saw a two...) and he and Morgana face off, and he can do nothing to her, since she's insubstantial... and then, suddenly, he connects her into a circuit and she gets pulled into it, draining the power grid for New York. And THAT makes sense...
David's of course coming down off an endorphin rush, as he realizes Nick ain't getting up. So, he angsts briefly and double fists plasma balls to try to shock Nick back to life, a la a defibrillator, which is wrong twice over: 1) Defibrillators DO NOT start hearts beating again, they stop them from beating erratically. and 2) I don't think you want to stab something that is used to CUT STEEL into someone's flesh...
Nick wakes up, a quick laugh, and David wanders over to find Alfred's bowler hat, but no Alfred... so, it should surprise no one when they announce a sequel.
Final Verdict: "You're not a wizard, Harry, you're a pathetic love story wrapped around Arthurian Legend, and you don't involve Lancelot's dilemma... You played as Icarus should have, and stayed middle ground, not aspiring for greatness, but not falling straight off...
Mote to self: pop estrogen and spironolactone
Movie review!
Sorcerer's Apprentice
Crap, where to start...?
Okay, sure, Merlin had hidden apprentices... no, not Arthur. Other apprentices... and one of them locked Morgan le Fay in an item that can hold souls apparently up to doomsday...? Or until underpowered wizards...'scuse me, sorcerers... come along and unintentionally find the object and bust it open and release Morgan le Fay's pupil, who immediately sets up plans to take over the world in the same way Morgan le Fay was planning, as part of her... shall we say... coming out party?
Eh, might as well tell you... Morgan le Fay is the creamy center in a Russian nesting doll of evil, surrounded by the original Salem Witch, a layer of Chinese martial artist, and then Morgan's pupil, none other than Doctor Octagonopus himself!
Anyway... Nicholas Cage gets tasked by Merlin to find... I shit you not, the 'Prime Merlinian'... which I guess is kind of like the Dalai Lama, as Merlin gives Nick a small pewter dragon, and says the dragon will lead him to this Prime Merlinian, who will of course have the power to destroy Morgan once and for all... Anyone else smelling RPG there?
One thousand years of searching later, our hero, David, walks into Nick's shop, which apparently does NO business, and that's quite alright, as Nick looks a bit crazy (Fun Fact: Nicholas Cage needed no makeup or wardrobe, it was all him...) and I certainly wouldn't buy 'magical' items from him...
Nick sees in David the power Merlin mentioned, and tells David to stay put, and touch nothing, yadda, yadda, blah, blah... imminent death, etc. Nick wanders off, and David somehow finds and releases the aforementioned nesting doll trap, pulls it out of Nick's shop's wall, where it was boarded up a la Cask of Amontillado, and picks it up, and this is the part where I blacked out from my brain hemorrhaging... because David did NOTHING, and the doll split wide open, leaking Alfred Molina as the Cock Roach into the world. Let me repeat that... this magical object that Nick trusts will hold Morgan le Fay until DOOMSDAY just split itself open and released the second greatest evil Nick has ever known because an untested sorcerer just happened to touch it! However, Alfred did right by me for asking David "When am I?" instead of "Where"... so, thumbs up...?
Oh, wait, it gets better... Nick and Alfred fight briefly in this house of 'magical' items, terrorizing our young hero, nay, traumatizing him, and splash a bowl of water on his crotch... (Damnit, someone cue Adam Sandler...) they get sucked into a magical urn that will hold them for ten years, and young David escapes the burning house of doom and crazy and runs into his teacher (oh, by the way, he ran off chasing a note he gave to his grade school crush "Do you like me, check one' Etc... and got separated from the group, and THEN found this shop...) The rest of the class looks on as David claims, hell or high water, that there was a 'couple of pedos in there, burning to death...' as the teacher opens the shop door, and finds nothing disturbed (besides David...) One of his classmates suddenly blurts: "It looks like he peed his pants!" (Adam Sandler...?) Thus begins David's ten years of trauma and therapy and becoming a big geeky loser... (Really? Oh god, ostracism! It's not my fault...) Blah de blah de dah...
"Ten years, to the day"
No, seriously, the screen actually puts that up there...
David is in college and is apparently brainy enough to cover classes for his teachers. Physics teachers, at that... on his birthday... and he runs into his grade school sweetheart by accidentally staring up her skirt as he goes chasing yet another bit of paper. "Oh, hey, I know you..." he cries, thinking that'll absolve him of the guilt of peeking up her skirt...
He teaches class, he follows her to her job as a college station radio disc jockey (Engh... no, not a CD jockey, oh no, Jerry Bruckheimer's old school, so she spins records... THE FUCK? All of the Fuck, not just part...), he fixes her reception problem, as surprise, surprise, David took points in Engineering...
Meanwhile, in a nice, opulent house, an old man walks by a familiar vase as it starts rocking... (If this vase is a rockin'... Nick and Alfred must be setting a homosexual tone for the movie... and now I've gone and creeped myself out) and walks back to stare at it, and argue with his wife about buying junk, and then Alfred pops out of the vase, and asks, "Am I the first one out?" Again, points for knowing the right question, causing old woman to faint, which prompts, "I'll take that as a yes."
Meanwhile meanwhile, Aquaman is sitting at home in the Hall of Justice, because he's damn useless...
I mean, meanwhile meanwhile, David has gone 'home' to his tesla coil project, ever so blatantly hinted at as being the reason he can't go out drinking on his birthday... stupid nerd. (Spoken with a knowing irony...) Oh, but wait, he might have a date with his grade school crush in the next few days.
And then, David runs into Alfred in his apartment, where Alfred berates David for being pedantic about Napoleon... (you see... Alfred was holding on to... never mind...) and sics David's roommate's wolf calendar on David, in an attempt to find the mysterious nesting doll that explodes if you sneeze in its general direction. David runs off to an El train station, where Nick catches up, riding a metallic Eagle of Middle Earth. David and Nick fly off, there's a training montage... Nick just happens to be the Prime Merlinian... I can't even type that with a straight face...
There's some sexual tension between David and his grade school crush (GSC from here out), not to mention a creepy stalker vibe from David. Things happen, there's a scene paying homage to Disney's Other Sorcerer's Apprentice, only, it's mops, and David's not nerdy enough to know that he needs to watch and make sure his spells don't go haywire...
More sexual tension, we find out Nick's other apprentice partner (Victoria, as played by Monica Belucci in a dress...) was the Arthurian times version of GSC, and he LUFFED her very much, and then she trapped Morgan's soul in her body, and he trapped her in the Nesting doll of very small rocks.
And then, a very sudden ray of sunshine happens, very briefly... David brings GSC back to his... train station sewer, and shows off his nerd quotient by playing a song for her on his tesla coils. No, seriously, looks up 'Secret' Tesla coils on Youtube... no, seriously, go watch, then come back here. I'll wait.
Was that not spectacular? Even through all that, there's still something wrong... did you notice he had her grab a metal bar to ground herself...? Not to mention all the high grade electronics in the cage too? Yeah, tesla coils spray EMPs pretty heavily, if I remember correctly...
Anyway...
Sexual tension, fight with Alfred's apprentice du jour... who I am now realizing was supposed to be either Criss Angel or Sigfried after Roy's mauling at tiger's paws... A brief sequence where Nick and David get to drive a car in Mirror world following a continuity error that actually tops the one I posted about in Vantage Point (The amazing repairing car...?) Let me put it this way... Nick's driving, using the British steering system that would befit him being from Britain, and David's on his left... Nick transforms the car to fit America, and suddenly, Nick's driving American style and David's still the passenger, only he's on Nick's right now... There goes my brain again... No, this was BEFORE they went into mirror world.
And then... GSC gets kidnapped, and used as... secondary bait to protect Alfred and the Nesting doll, when Nick and David infiltrate Criss' apartment of magical objects... And then, Morgan gets released, and there's a 'Massive showdown' in Battery Park, which Nick... understandably knows about... having lived in New York forever since it was founded... The big confusion is how Alfred knows about it, and that it might be important... Anyway, it should be noted, Alfred 'killed' all his apprentices on the way to releasing Morgan so he could use their various magic summoning tools (That's crazy in and of itself... apparently, sorcerers can only cast if they have their pendant, or ring or what have you... it's not enough for them to know what magic is... nor for them to die suddenly when Alfred cuts them away from their magic source Anyway, this is the big fuckin' plot point that will make David into the Prime Merlinian, much like Neo in the Matrix, he can do magic without his ring, or will be able to, once the time comes, setting him up for a big damn hero moment...)
Alfred and Nick face off, which ends with Alfred getting his walking stick struck by David's portable tesla coils on Nick's car (Alfred's stick is wood, except for the rings and pendants he wrapped around them... so of course, the tesla coil lightning strike is going to vaporize him...) Nick and David face off against Morgan via Victoria, Nick tries to suck Morgan's soul out of Victoria with a straw... nah, it was a spell hinted at earlier... it works, briefly, but Morgana 'materializes' in much the same way the sand things do in Prince of Persia... not really solid, but still powerful... and she shoots Nick in the chest with a plasma bolt (No, seriously, Nick told us during training what those were) Nick goes down, and David steps up, hard, creating a magic shield without his ring (or, rather, Merlin's ring...) and suddenly, everything is green ones and zeroes (I think I saw a two...) and he and Morgana face off, and he can do nothing to her, since she's insubstantial... and then, suddenly, he connects her into a circuit and she gets pulled into it, draining the power grid for New York. And THAT makes sense...
David's of course coming down off an endorphin rush, as he realizes Nick ain't getting up. So, he angsts briefly and double fists plasma balls to try to shock Nick back to life, a la a defibrillator, which is wrong twice over: 1) Defibrillators DO NOT start hearts beating again, they stop them from beating erratically. and 2) I don't think you want to stab something that is used to CUT STEEL into someone's flesh...
Nick wakes up, a quick laugh, and David wanders over to find Alfred's bowler hat, but no Alfred... so, it should surprise no one when they announce a sequel.
Final Verdict: "You're not a wizard, Harry, you're a pathetic love story wrapped around Arthurian Legend, and you don't involve Lancelot's dilemma... You played as Icarus should have, and stayed middle ground, not aspiring for greatness, but not falling straight off...
Mote to self: pop estrogen and spironolactone