The Sorcerer's Apprentice
Wolfling and I went to see The Sorcerer's Apprentice last night. I went in with low expectations and enjoyed myself quite a bit. Wolfling started whispering "I love this movie!" only a few minutes into it.
I always like Nicolas Cage, and enjoyed his performance here. I thought it was funny that the young man playing Dave the apprentice, although he didn't look anything like Cage, sounded a lot like him.
The whole movie was fun, but my personal favorite part was when Cage was first showing Dave the magician's training circle. He stands in the middle of a big room and as he speaks about magic a stream of fire starts shaping sigils on the ground and then forming a circle. Even though he's seriously scruffy it was the sexiest thing I've seen in a long time.
I also had to chuckle because of the similarity to the beginning of the training sequence in The Mask of Zorro: the same older champion telling the younger man how this circle is about to become his life.
Also delightful was the moment when the Alfred Molina's villainous Horvath uses magic to persuade a hapless university official to give him the information he wants. His own apprentice says the line everyone else in the theater had to be thinking.
It was all high fantasy magic of course, but I came out of the movie wanting to run home and work on my own magical practice. I won't be summoning dragons into city streets or throwing plasma bolts around, but I can connect with powerful forces that a lot of people simply don't believe exist, and learn and grow from the process.
I always like Nicolas Cage, and enjoyed his performance here. I thought it was funny that the young man playing Dave the apprentice, although he didn't look anything like Cage, sounded a lot like him.
The whole movie was fun, but my personal favorite part was when Cage was first showing Dave the magician's training circle. He stands in the middle of a big room and as he speaks about magic a stream of fire starts shaping sigils on the ground and then forming a circle. Even though he's seriously scruffy it was the sexiest thing I've seen in a long time.
I also had to chuckle because of the similarity to the beginning of the training sequence in The Mask of Zorro: the same older champion telling the younger man how this circle is about to become his life.
Also delightful was the moment when the Alfred Molina's villainous Horvath uses magic to persuade a hapless university official to give him the information he wants. His own apprentice says the line everyone else in the theater had to be thinking.
It was all high fantasy magic of course, but I came out of the movie wanting to run home and work on my own magical practice. I won't be summoning dragons into city streets or throwing plasma bolts around, but I can connect with powerful forces that a lot of people simply don't believe exist, and learn and grow from the process.