THE SORCERER’S APPRENTICE * * *
Cert PG, 108 mins
Disney Studios have a long relationship with this concept, going back to the 1940 film Fantasia, in which Mickey Mouse made magic to Paul Dukas’s score.

There’s a nice nod to that famous celluloid moment in this modern, live-action movie.

Geeky Dave Stutler (Jay Baruchel) tries to hurry up his housework by enchanting mops and buckets of water to work on their own, with predictably disastrous results.

It’s one of the few clever scenes in a watchable, but forgettable film, which starts with a complicated prologue which will have youngsters scratching their heads in confusion.

We’re told that Merlin had three apprentices, Balthazar, Horvath and Veronica. Horvath betrayed the others by siding with Merlin’s deadliest enemy, Morgana Le Fey.

For 1,000 years, Balthazar (Nicolas Cage) has been searching for the Prime Merlinian, the only one who can kill Morgana.

His successor turns out to be Dave, who we first see as a ten-year-old boy, traumatised by his encounter with Balthazar and Horvath (Alfred Molina).

A decade later they find Dave studying physics at New York University.

“I just want to be normal, I want to forget about magic,” he protests, but he has a destiny to fulfil – and, under Balthazar’s tutelage, he gets a taste for sorcery. That’s just as well, as he has a major battle on his hands to save mankind.

With a producer in Jerry Bruckheimer – the man behind the Pirates of the Caribbean and National Treasure films – we can expect lots of action and chases, and he doesn’t disappoint, though some are a little too frenetic.

Cage is as wacky as ever and Baruchel is a likeable goof, though Molina is wasted and not quite evil enough.

Think Harry Potter lite, with more glitz and less human appeal or decent plot. RL

THE LAST AIRBENDER *
Cert PG, 103 mins
Looking at this poor film, it seems impossible that its writer/director is the same man who made The Sixth Sense. M Night Shyamalan’s films have been getting steadily worse ever since – The Happening was awful but he’s reached a real nadir with this.

He’s back in fantasy land, with nomads of the four nations – air, earth, water and fire – who can ‘bend’ their element. The Avatar is the only one who can master all four elements and communicate with the spirit world, but he hasn’t been seen for 100 years.

Then a boy called Aang (Noah Ringer) emerges to a war-torn world.

Some cast members like Slumdog Millionaire’s Dev Patel try their best with a terrible script, but most of the acting is more wooden than a timber yard.

It starts off being so-bad-it’s-funny, especially when lines like “She’s a bender!” elicit laughs of derision.

But I swiftly became bored with a repetitive and laboured film devoid of drama, tension or real emotion. RL

SKELETONS * * *
Cert 12A, 93 mins
Derbyshire writer/director Nick Whitfield has transformed his own short into a feature-length debut.

It’s decidedly low budget, but sufficiently inventive enough to have won the Michael Powell prize for being the best of British at the Edinburgh Film Festival.

The story is about two travelling salesmen ghostbusters, Davis (Ed Gaughan) and Bennett (Andrew Buckley).

Working for a boss called The Colonel (Jason Isaacs), their job is to clean out the skeletons lurking in clients’ wardrobes.

Having earlier decided that Rasputin was ‘morally transparent’ compared with the ‘ambiguous’ Kennedys, what happens if, for example, a woman tells them she used to know Shakespeare – but they know her partner has been seeing prostitutes?

Very British in its off-beat style, Skeletons has a universal theme of truth on both sides of the camera.

With her straight fringe, Tuppence Middleton (Tormented) offers shades of a younger Susan Penhaligon as the daughter rendered mute by a trauma.

The score by Simon Whitfield is rather repetitive, but a reminder of the love it or hate it-style of There Will Be Blood. GY

COCO CHANEL & IGOR STRAVINSKY * * *
Cert 15, 118 mins

The fashion designer and composer were rumoured to have an affair when he stayed at her Paris villa.

This film imagines what might have happened.

In 1913, Coco Chanel (Anna Mouglalis) is one of the more positive members of the audience at the first performance of Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring, considered far too modern and discordant by a booing public.

Seven years later, Igor (Mads Mikkelsen) and Coco meet again and she offers the penniless composer, his wife and their four children a place to stay.

There’s an instant attraction between the couple and they embark on a passionate fling.

It’s well-shot and stylish, but slow and rather dull, with emotionally distant characters and a weak ending.

The best acting comes from Yelena Morozova as we sympathise with Igor’s sickly wife Katarina, forced to put up with her husband bedding the glamorous Coco under her nose. RL