Nicolas Cage stars as Balthazar Blake, a sorcerer seeking a successor to the legendary Merlin, in the fantasy film The Sorcerer's Apprentice. (Disney Enterprises, Inc./Jerry Bruckheimer, Inc.)

In what is surely a comment on the depressing state of the blockbuster in the summer of 2010, I caught myself actually succumbing to the dog’s breakfast that is The Sorcerer’s Apprentice.

Make no mistake: This movie is every bit as big, noisy and dumb as Knight and Day, but its dumbness manages to be playful and charming, which counts for a lot in a season of soulless ventures like The Last Airbender.

This movie is every bit as big, noisy and dumb as Knight and Day, but its dumbness manages to be playful and charming.

The film’s slapdash screenwriting is established at the outset, in one of those hokey, wildly elliptical montage sequences that used to kick off TV shows like Kung Fu: The Legend Continues. The whiplash-inducing back story begins in 740 A.D., when Merlin did battle with the nasty Morgana Le Fay (Alice Krige). Betrayals and soul-swapping abound, and as Merlin lies on his deathbed, he begs one of his trusted sorcerers, Balthazar Blake (Nicolas Cage), to go on a hunt for “the young Merlinian,” a successor powerful enough to stop the destruction his enemies hope to unleash on the world.

Flash forward to the year 2000, where a precocious 10-year-old named Dave Stutler is attempting to impress his crush, Becky, while on a field trip in Manhattan. In a contrived plot device, Dave splits off from his classmates and winds up in a dusty, tchotchke-filled shop belonging to Balthazar. The sorcerer wastes no time informing the boy that he is destined to be Merlin’s chosen one – a revelation that is swiftly interrupted by the appearance of Balthazar’s dastardly nemesis, Maxim Horvath (Alfred Molina), a sorcerer who’s turned to the dark side.

The episode ends in humiliation for the boy. The next time we see him is 10 years later. Now studying at New York University, the grown-up nerd (embodied by Jay Baruchel) has sworn off women and opted for a life of physics experiments conducted in an impressive abandoned subway station-cum-science lab. Due to a series of coincidences, Dave soon finds himself meeting both Becky (Teresa Palmer) and Balthazar once more, and attempting to juggle a budding romance while learning old-school, fireball-throwing magic from his gruff new mentor.

Stale as this set-up sounds, there’s something endearing about the first half of The Sorcerer’s Apprentice. As in his National Treasure films, director Jon Turteltaub tailors his adventure story to kid audiences. While parents might groan at the film’s predictability, youngsters will likely go bananas over the geek-empowerment themes and eye-popping action.

The special effects are top-notch throughout – thankfully, no one thought it necessary to render them in 3-D. The action sequences make excellent use of the Manhattan backdrop. One of the statuesque eagles atop the Chrysler Building takes flight, an animated bronze bull statue stomps through Bowling Green Park and a giant, colourful dragon wreaks havoc on the vibrant, neon-drenched streets of Chinatown.

The staging of the movie’s elaborate set pieces isn’t always so clever. A car chase through the streets of midtown is so frenzied it comes across as a wasted opportunity. Producer Jerry Bruckheimer never met an edit he didn’t like, and a lot of the action in The Sorcerer’s Apprentice is more confusing than exciting.

Maxim Horvath (Alfred Molina, left) confronts would-be magician Dave Stutler (Jay Baruchel) in The Sorcerer's Apprentice. (Disney Enterprises, Inc./Jerry Bruckheimer, Inc.)

But when Turteltaub settles down and focuses – as he does in the film’s one overt nod to its Disney source material – the result is inspired. When fragments of the Paul Dukas piece used in Fantasia blast on the soundtrack, and Dave uses his fledgling sorcery skills to make all of the mops, pails and electrical outlets in his lab come to life, the movie casts a goofy spell.

The Sorcerer’s Apprentice loses steam after that moment. Six writers worked on the screenplay, but none of them figured out how to gracefully merge the large-scale battle scenes with the quieter plotline involving Dave’s attempts to woo Becky. It’s not that the movie’s romantic scenes are bad; in fact, Baruchel’s got more than enough dry humour and self-deprecating charm to make you root for his character. But every time Dave goes wandering after his girl, the sorcerer story grinds to a halt. It gives the movie a herky-jerky pace, as scenes lurch back and forth between attention-deficit action and puppy love.

The biggest casualty here is Cage, who isn’t given enough space to work up to his usual infectious mania. Sporting Chad Kroeger hair and a leather trench coat, he seems more like a tired rocker than a magical wizard, and the character never comes fully into view. There’s also a sense of torch-passing going on in his scenes with Baruchel – Cage seems content to drift to the background and let the young Canadian actor take centre stage.

That’s not a bad thing, as Baruchel and the gifted Alfred Molina end up elevating The Sorcerer’s Apprentice to passable entertainment. One of the more refreshing things about the movie is its emphasis on smarts – no shirtless ab shots here. These two actors make well-matched opponents, ones who are more likely to fight with snide barbs and scientific inventions than actual weapons. The Sorcerer’s Apprentice is still pretty silly, but kids could do a lot worse this summer than a movie where the revenge of a nerd is possible.

The Sorcerer’s Apprentice opens July 14.

Lee Ferguson writes about the arts for CBC News.