Got tweens in the house? We review two new films, one a book adaptation, and one a remake of a Disney classic animation. Anya takes the boys to see Diary of a Wimpy Kid, and The Sorcerer’s Apprentice…
Got tweens in the house? We review two new films, one a book adaptation, and one a remake of a Disney classic animation. Anya takes the boys to see Diary of a Wimpy Kid, and Sorcerer’s Apprentice…
Diary of a Wimpy Kid
We have a bit of a rule in our house, that if a film has been made out of a book, we need to read the book before we see the film. This is usually fairly incidental, as we appear to be fairly good readers, and seem to have covered most films of books coming out now or in the near future.
Diary of a Wimpy kid (and the next 4 books) is my nearly-11-year-old son’s just-about-absolute-favourite series of books. Only Dr Who and Calvin and Hobbs (a comic strip from the US) rank above this for him. So he was over the moon to take himself and his best friend Toby (and younger brother 7) off to the preview of said book. He is getting a little more savvy with the process now, and realises that more often that not, the book and the film don’t always share much in common.
In this case the sense of humour that is so supremely evident in all the books (just silly slapstick boy humour) about a boy (Greg Heffley) moving his way through middle school (the equivalent here would be Intermediate) and the many ‘adventures’ that come his way, is not quite as evident in the film. Greg sails through life with his best friend Rowley, positive that good things will happen (apart from being harassed by his elder brother Roddrick). They don’t. In fact he has disaster after disaster fall on him and Rowley. Things start to turn for Rowley (and how this happens differs from the book) and his popularity improves as Greg’s decreases.
There is a great thread running through the book and film, about the ‘cheese touch’ where a boy touches a stagnant, repellent piece of cheese on the playground thereby being cursed with the ‘cheese touch’ (cheese cooties basically). The ‘cheese touch’ curse is passed on by touching someone else, transferring the curse. One child holds the curse for too long and ends up moving to California taking the curse with him. I am assured the sequence is in the book and is funny both on screen and in the book.
The scene-stealer though is the hideous, and hilarious, Fregley. He is pretty much indescribable except to say he tried to show Greg and Rowley his freckle with a hair growing out of it (eeekkkk!), and chase Greg with a booger, and both scenes are perfect in that grotty boy humour sort of way!
The boys all gave it a good solid three out of five (one was wavering and nearly gave it a four out of love for the books) and it is a perfectly good film for the in-between age group (and younger). There is no kissing or anything else an 11-year-old boy would fine inappropriate (eeeuuu!) Just lots of peeing jokes, boogers and stinky cheese. Excellent!
The Sorcerer’s Apprentice
There are some of you that simply may be too young to remember the Disney classic, Fantasia, made in 1940. Though this film was re-released in 2000 for its 60th anniversary, there are still many who have never seen it. One of the small sequences from the film is a short story about a sorcerer’s apprentice (Mickey Mouse) who is left to clean up the castle. Lazily, he tries to enlist the help of magic, making all the brooms and mops come to life to clean the castle from top to bottom. Unfortunately, things go awry (as things often do with magic) and things get out of control. Luckily the sorcerer comes back in time to save Mickey from all sorts of calamities!
The film version of that short sequence (at a mere nine minutes long) is the inspiration for this updated, and generally re-worked version, which obviously is also a lot longer. It stars Nicolas Cage as a centuries old sorcerer called Balthazar Blake, looking for Merlin’s replacement to battle the evil of Morgiana (Alice Krige) and her sidekick Maxim Hovarth (played by Alfred Molina, who seems to get all the evil dude gigs at the moment).
That replacement, unbelievably, appears to be a young New Yorker (played as an adult by the usually very funny Jay Baruchel – he voiced the main character in ‘How to Train a Dragon’). After meeting Balthazar as a clumsy, nerdy 10 year old, Dave is ‘chosen’ by Merlin’s ring as his successor.
In the process though, Balthazar and Maxim get themselves sealed into an urn, which magically opens 10 years to the day later. This finds Dave now at school at NYU, a bit of a nerd and a physics major to boot. Somehow Balthazar manages to convince a very sceptical Dave that he needs to learn the craft, to basically save the world and his true love (Monica Bellucci). Dave’s love interest is Becky (Teresa Palmer, who strangely looks like a blond, happier version of Kristin Stewart according to my children) whom he manages to go on dates with and convince he is genuinely a sorcerer, all the while being pursued by Maxim and his hilarious number two, Toby Kebbell, who manages to almost get all the good lines!
Watch out for the Star Wars reference, which had my geeky children rolling in the aisle long after everyone else had stopped laughing. The other character in the film, of course, is all the CGI effects. My kids loved the China Town sequence with a very large dragon, the mops and brooms coming to life (a la the original Fantasia) and the TESLA sequence with the music (you have to see it to know what I mean!)
My kids enjoyed the film, though even they (10, 13 and 13) realised that it wasn’t much of a story line, and some of the story just didn’t jibe (how exactly did Dave get Becky to fall in love with him so fast?) and that it was all rather predictable. That said it was a good ride with lots of bang and fizz along the way. Nicolas Cage is so very good at playing Nicolas Cage – only his hair seems to change with each character. And I am particularly sorry that Jay Baruchel didn’t have some better stuff to work with but it (the film) is that rare beast – a family film – so take the family and go see it. Three stars out of five.
By Anya Brighouse, 25 August 2010.
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