Balthazar Blake (Nicolas Cage) has spent centuries after the death of his master, Merlin, keeping the evil sorcerers at bay and searching for the chosen one – i.e. The Prime-Merlinian or the magically inclined descendant to Merlin.  One afternoon Balthazar finally finds him in a nerdy ten-year-old boy, Dave.  Dave (Jay Baruchel) becomes the physics geek that learns that he needs to become the next greatest sorcerer since Merlin.

Disney is definitely on the search for the next action/adventure/fantasy franchise ever since the fall off of the Pirates of the Caribbean series.  Even though a fourth film is on the way we all know since the third film crashed critically no one – including Disney – is prepared to sit through another trilogy.  So with the release of Prince of Persia earlier this summer – which I actually enjoyed – and this film we can tell that Disney is spending a lot of time fishing for that next big budget name that will see them through the next decade.

So the question I had to ask myself as I left the theatre was whether Disney has found that property that they’re looking for; and the truth of the matter is that while I did have a relative amount of fun this movie I don’t think that this is it just yet.  Just like when I saw She’s Out of My League earlier this year I realised that Jay Baruchel isn’t someone who I enjoy as a leading actor.  His style of nerdy awkward comedy – that Michael Cera and others have been hated for – is just annoying.  It’s one thing where you’re just being awkward, but when you – as a character – realise the awkwardness of yourself and refuse to just be what you are it just makes me cringe continuously.

With all that said about Jay Baruchel it’s always fun for me when I get to sit down to a two-hour ridiculous-fest that is a Jerry Bruckheimer film which stars Nicolas Cage.  I know Nicolas Cage is infamous for his bad acting, and it shows here frame to frame.  However, I’m not one of those people who think that’s a bad thing.  Cage, while being ridiculous making him be an ‘old’ guy who likes to let plasma bolts shoot out of his palms seems like the kind of thing that Cage would be used to doing by now.  He gives us a serviceable performance with a handful of moments where we know that he’s having enough fun with the role that we, the audience, end up having fun watching him on screen.  However, Alfred Molina steals the show as the best friend that’s turned bad.  Just like in Prince of Persia where we have these slew of main characters that we’re supposed to invest in the moment that Maxim (Alfred Molina) steps on screen we just start to forget that anyone else was cast in the film.  I continue to pray for the movie that will put Alfred Molina as the lead.

In the end it’s not a bad movie but to call it a good movie would be an even bigger stretch of the imagination.  It suffers not only from an annoying lead character, Baruchel, but also from a stupid Matrix Reloaded type ending.  Also, I find it interesting that as okay as this movie is it remains astonishing that it also has to deal with earning the title of not being as good as Prince of Persia.

IMDB says 6.4/10

Rotten Tomatoes says 44%

I say 5.0/10