If you saw the trailer for The Sorcerer’s Apprentice and thought to yourself, “YES.  I have been waiting for this.  The team that brought us National Treasure and National Treasure: Book of Secrets have made another film starring Nic Cage that looks a bit like Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief and I totally want to see this. I am SO THERE.”, then you will not be disappointed in The Sorcerer’s Apprentice.  I had kind of the opposite reaction when I saw the trailer – falling somewhere between “Oh no.” and “Huh.  I think I’m going to have a grilled cheese sandwich for lunch today.”

Generally speaking, this type of movie just isn’t my cup of tea, so when I entered the theater my expectations were neutral – to say the least. That said, it was a lot better than I expected it to be.

Loosely based on The Sorcerer’s Apprentice segment of Disney’s Fantasia, the film has a relatively simple premise. The wizard Merlin – of Arthurian legend fame - is going about the business of doing battle with his nemesis, Morgana le Fay.  Though aided by his three apprentices – Balthazar (Nicolas Cage, equipped with flowing extensions), Veronica (Monica Bellucci) and Horvath (Alfred Molina), Merlin is destroyed by Morgana due in large part to an act of betrayal by of one of his followers, the amusingly named Horvath.

What follows is a little difficult to explain, but during the kerfuffle Veronica sacrifices herself by taking the spirit form of Morgana into her own body while a deeply wounded Balthazar uses magic to trap the remaining three wizards inside a matryoshka doll. Before his demise, Merlin had given Balthazar his Dragon Ring, explaining that he would eventually cross paths with a wizard whom the ring would chose to belong to and that this person would be powerful enough to defeat Morgana. For centuries Balthazar searches for his new apprentice – to no avail – collecting several other dark magicians to fill the nesting doll along the way.

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There is no doubt this weekend is going to be a massive draw for the overall box office. Between Warner Brothers’ Inception, and Disney’s The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, there will be plenty of things for adults and kids alike to check out in theaters.

The latter of the two films is quite intriguing because it’s a feature script based on the short from Fantasia of the same name. Only instead of Mickey Mouse, we get Jay Baruchel and instead of the silent wizard, we get Nic Cage. One of those trades sounds worthwhile.

The film is also supposed to incorporate some of the elements of Harry Potter, while staying as contemporary as a film like Jumper. Also, expect plenty of high-tension CG fight scenes taking place in downtown Manhattan.

We’ve got four new clips from the film you can check out, including one with one of our favorite film baddies, Alfred Molina. Take a look at them after the jump. Catch Disney’s The Sorcerer’s Apprentice in theaters this Friday.

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To all who have survived the month of June by successfully traversing lines of blood-sucking twihards, I congratulate you. You can relax now because the steaming month of July is less about men of iron and teenagers who use SPF 60 and more about whiz kids, dreamers, and spies.

Movie studios may appear to be throwing grenades into your trench, but don’t let the eye-catching blue and orange of the movie posters fool you. These grenades are merely filled with smoke and a good amount of marketing slickness. They will explode in your face only when you yank the pin by paying $12. Then, they will have truly won the battle. Instead of succumbing to the propaganda, arm yourselves wisely with the reviews below.

Those in the know will hold their breath until August when the golden generation of action heroes team up to save the world, kick some ass before kicking the bucket, and get sweaty enough to take off their shirts- giving both men and women some very good reasons for sitting in an air-conditioned multiplex.

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If heading out to the typical summer blockbusters (Iron Man 2, The A-Team, Toy Story 3 and The Twilight Saga: Eclipse) is already a given and you’re looking for other movies to occupy your time, or if you’re looking for film to take the kids to, Disney is hoping that a live action adaptation of a portion of Fantasia will be just what the doctor ordered.

The decision to adapt the iconic moment (and THE image of Mickey Mouse in the minds of fans around the world) into a full-length, live action film has its roots in Cage’s fondness for the film (he watches it every year) and a quick, on-set conversation with a former producer.

“When I came up with this idea, I was on Next. I was talking with (producer) Todd Garner and I said, ‘Man, I really want to play a magician. I want to play a sorcerer.’ He came in the next day and said, ‘Nic, I got it. Let’s do Sorcerer’s Apprentice.’ Then I went to my partner at the time, Norm Golightly and we got a script out of it.

We all thought, ‘You know who would really put this on a fast track, who would give it all the panache and all the big entertainment style, nobody better than Jerry Bruckheimer.’ So we went to Jerry and being the good friend and great producer that he is, he read it and he said, ‘Hey, we’re doing it.’ We just got off of National Treasure 2 and that was a great experience. We thought the only man that could really do it and make this unique, bring the comedy into it and the humor into it and make it really connect with big audiences like kids and adults was Jon Turteltaub. That’s how it happened.”

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With Kevin Smith’s Cop Out defying the tidal wave of negative reviews and still managing to bring in nearly $20 Million this past weekend, other studios are looking to amp up their comedies in hopes they will be a trending genre for moviegoers this year.

With that, Paramount and Dreamworks is gearing up for next week’s release of She’s Out of My League, starring Alice Eve and Tropic Thunder’s Jay Baruchel. The film throws an interesting twist into the “boy meets girl” dynamic by adding the fact that the guy is a lanky geek and the girl is a “10″. Never heard that one before, right?

The film hits theaters on March 12th, but we were lucky enough to get our hands on a few tasty new clips to share with you. Check them out after the jump. In addition to Barchel, the film also stars Mike Vogel, Debra Jo Rupp, Kim Shaw, Geoff Stults, and T.J. Miller. It hits theaters on March 12.

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While most fans of classic cartoons think of Mickey Mouse and a bunch of dancing brooms when we hear “Sorcerer’s Apprentice”, it’s also the name of an upcoming Jon Turteltaub film based on the cartoon, starring Nic Cage.

The original cartoon is about Mickey Mouse, an apprentice to a great Sorcerer, who is meant to only clean up the wizard’s lair when he is done “magicing”. When left alone, Mickey decides to play with his own magic and have to room clean up itself. How Bruckheimer and Turteltaub were able to turn this into a 90-minute action comedy about New York City, is astounding.

The film stars Nic Cage as the Sorcerer, Jay Baruchel (Tropic Thunder) plays the reluctant apprentice, and Alfred Molina steps in as the evil sorcerer. The trailer makes the film look like a paid ad for New York City and computer rendering software, so don’t expect much.

Check out the first look after the jump, and catch Disney’s Sorcerer’s Apprentice in theaters July 16, 2010.

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