I don’t honestly know about this one. It’s a Disney live-action re-imagining of a segment from the classic Fantasia…. and… yeah. That’s it really.
Okay, that’s a little unfair. To be honest, I know I should hate this movie. The main character is annoying as hell, the plot is simple, and the main villain… has almost no development. There is also very little in the way of exposition past the opening screen. Most people would say that’s a good thing, but there are some times when things really need to be explained in a movie. They didn’t really do that here. But to be honest… I DON’T HATE THIS MOVIE! I could watch this movie over and over. It’s a guilty pleasure that I’m not really all that guilty about.
Let’s dive in…
So the movie starts off during the time of… well I guess King Arthur as it deals with Merlin and his three apprentices Baltazar, Horvath, and Veronica. So Merlin get’s betrayed by Madam Mim… I’m sorry I mean Mihn… I’m sorry… how many different names does this rival sorceress go through during the legend? So her name in this retelling is Morgana. Although I’m pretty certain that’s the Borg queen…
Ah well, anyway, Merlin is betrayed and murdered and Veronica sacrifices herself to trap Morgana in her body and then in… a nesting doll… okay… Lesbian overtone? Since it’s the borg queen we’re talking about here, I’m not exploring that joke.
So Baltazar and Horvath have spells cast on them to prevent them from aging while they look for the Prime Merlinian… which according to legend is the one person who can defeat Morgana permanently…. This person is apparently somehow Merlin’s descendant. It’s one of those pesky things that they don’t explain very well.
So it turns out that Horvath as been in league with Morgana from the start and apparently Horvath has been recruiting people to be Morganians while Baltazar goes around looking for this Prime Merlinian. But he also captures Morganians as he travels… why he doesn’t just kill them is beyond me, but again, it’s not explained. He eventually even catches Horvath… again, why not just kill him!?
Ugh… anyway, years pass and we get to the 90s when this kid named Dave wanders into an antique shop run by Baltazar. He’s identified by Merlin’s dragon ring as the Prime Merlinian. At this point, Dave accidentally allows Horvath to escape and Baltazar has to fight him. The fight lasts all of two seconds and both Horvath and Baltazar are imprisoned in a magic jug for 10 years.
Dave is emotionally scarred by the event and grows up a nerd and a reject. But he’s very smart and finds that quantum physics comes easy to him… whereas I’m not even sure I spelled the name right! So he meets up with a childhood friend right around the same time that Horvath and Baltazar escape the jug, Horvath tracks down Dave and… okay this is actually a little funny. He reveals himself to Dave by giving him a C on a report he did in Elementary school that was dropped when Horvath was imprisoned in the jug.
So long story short, Baltazar rescues Dave, Dave has to find a way to balance being geeky and rekindling a friendship with Becky, his childhood friend, while dealing with Baltazar consisted insufferable training. The best part of this is when Batlazar get’s mad about Dave skipping out on his training, he doesn’t yell at Dave, he just makes his life a living hell in front of Becky by saying he’s going out to pick up some anti-itch cream for Dave. That had me laughing.
Meanwhile Horvath goes to a contact… who or what this contact is, how he knows about magic, and what his significance is… AGAIN never explained. But this burger flipper tells him to look up a guy Drake who is a Morganian who has made a name for himself as a performing magician. This character is comic relief When Baltazar or Dave aren’t.
So long story short, Dave get’s the girl. Together, Dave and Baltazar defeat all the Morganians except for Horvath who releases Morgana. Dave is able to defeat her by finally realizing his true power and… one would argue a little anti-climacticly defeats her while saving Baltazar’s long-lost love, Veronica.
So Dave get’s the girl, the world is safe, Baltazar is reunited with his love, Morgana is dead, and Horvath… has disappeared. We don’t see why, how, or when he escapes, or why he doesn’t help Morgana, but he does… so thank you, add that to the list of unexplained events!!!
Okay, so now that I’ve properly thrashed this movie, you’re probably wondering why I like it. Well aside from the plot holes you could sail a ship through, a lack of exposition and an annoying lead who looks like he was rejected from the Big Bang Theory… it was actually a pretty fun movie. You really need expand your threshold of disbelief and allow a few things to go unexplained, but if you can do that, it’s very enjoyable.
Nicolas Cage is his usual demented yet charming self as he portrays Baltazar. One thing I will say about Nicolas Cage… when he’s acting, you can tell when he really likes a role. In many roles, he’s just a stage presence, but when it comes to things like Ghost Rider and this, you can tell he gives it his all and instead of playing a character, plays himself as if it were Nicolas Cage as the Ghost Rider, or Nicolas Cage as a sorcerer, and that’s very difficult to do well.
Alfred Molina played the arch rival in this movie, Horvath. I will say this about him, as a bad guy, he’s a lot of fun. He went from being relatively unknown to being thrust into the spotlight as both the bad guy in the Da Vinci Code and Spiderman 2. Honestly, when I watch this movie, I watch it for Horvath. I just love how he reacts to people and how he handles life with a sort of nonchalance. Which you can see in my FAVORITE scene, listed below:
Toby Kebbell as Drake is another fun character, and more proof that you really can’t take this movie too seriously. It was meant to be a fun time with action, adventure, magic, and a lot of laughs.
But I think the scene that really won everyone over was the major nod to Fantasia by the inclusion of the famous broom scene:
So in the end, it’s a good movie, one I highly recommend. I loved it, and I think anyone else will too. It does have a few problems, but it’s Disney, you’re not meant to take it too seriously, and in a world of bad remakes, sequels, and re-imaginings, this was a breath of fresh, creative air. So this movie get’s my stamp of approval. Give it a watch and enjoy the lunacy!