6.12.10

‘The Sorcerer’s Apprentice’: Welcome Back, Magic : THE FRONT PAGE ONLINE

Dismissed by many among the film cognoscenti as shallow spectacle and proclaimed a flop by the media for raking in a mere $24 million on its five-day opening weekend — Disney’s second misfire after “Prince of Persia” — “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” seems positioned for box office oblivion. The wound, beyond competition from “Inception” and the circulation of films like “Despicable Me” and the powerhouse “Toy Story 3,” is arguably self-inflicted. Why did no one who read the script throughout the byzantine process of movie development suggest a more ambitious project? Even on paper, the plot of a boy’s apprenticeship to a sorcerer, loaded with the backstory of a struggle between Merlin’s and Morgana Le Fay’s followers, is exhausted formula.

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