Ladies, I have a question to ask you: if a skinny awkward physics student informs you that he is stalking you in a non-threatening manner, would you be alarmed? And if you looked like Teresa Palmer, would you even come close to considering him as a potential future boyfriend? I ask because this is exactly what occurs in The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, Jerry Bruckheimer and Jon Turteltaub’s new action adventure film and hopeful franchise starter, in which Dave Stutler, who looks and talks like the irritating Jay Baruchel, follows and then informs Becky, the out-of-his-league arts student that he’s been in love with since grade school, that he has been stalking her in a non-threatening manner in an effort to woo her, further reinforcing the Hollywood-perpetuated myth that average looking, unpopular, neurotic boys can get with beautiful intelligent girls if they are just persistent (i.e. creepy) enough. Somehow, when the über-aggravating Jay Baruchel plays the boy, this storyline is harder to believe than the fact that Dave Stutler is actually a descendant of Merlin, and his job, as the “prime Merlinean”, is to defeat Merlin’s foe, Maxim Horvath (Alfred Molina), with the help of Balthazar (Nicolas Cage), Merlin’s disciple, who incidentally resembles a hobo more than he does an ancient magician.
