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Over the last few years, actor Nicholas Cage, like many other Americans, has been struggling with heavy financial woes. I will not pretend that I know the particulars of his problems; this isn’t a celebrity gossip site, and the ins and outs are not relevant. The only reason to point out that Cage has had to sell away a handful of his mansions is to illustrate that the man needs money and has been working constantly to combat this problem.

Counting voiceover work, Cage completed four films last year and is on his way to having four more in the can by the end of 2010. While quantity can add up to nothing, what is exciting is the quality of some of this work. With weird and wacky turns in Werner Herzog’s “The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call - New Orleans” and the twisted superhero movie, “Kickass,” this recent run seems to have reinvigorated Cage, giving him some of the energy and fire he had during his early career in such films as “Vampire’s Kiss” and “Wild at Heart.”

Disney’s “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” may not break any new ground, but it is apparent that Nicholas Cage is having a hell of a good time playing wizard. The film re-teams Cage with producer Jerry Bruckheimer, who has been instrumental in making Cage a semi-pseudo-action star by casting him in “The Rock,” “Con-Air” and, much more recently, in the “National Treasure” films. Bruckheimer knows how to make summer blockbusters (“The Pirates of the Caribbean” trilogy and “Armageddon”), and this movie is no exception. What makes “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” invigorating is that here in the summer of 2010, these types of movies (“The Last Airbender,” “The A Team”) have fallen flat while this movie delivers just what is promised: a good time.

The movie begins as the story of three apprentices, actually. Balthazar (Cage), Horvath (Alfred Molina) and Veronica (Monica Bellucci) are all students of the great and powerful Merlin. The year is 740 A.D., and Merlin must do battle against the wicked Morgana (Alice Krige) and stop her from performing “The Rising spell,” damning the world to eternal darkness and making the dead walk the earth once again. Morgana’s defeat seems inevitable, yet Merlin is betrayed by one of his own and destroyed. Balthazar traps Morgana in a “Grim Hold,” a sort of magic nesting doll, and begins his search for the one person who can actually destroy her.

If this sounds like a lot of spoilerish information, it really isn’t. All this is thrown at you in the first five minutes of the film. It is an amazing feat, and it is a sure indication that the movie is brimming with plots and subplots. The movie is credited to six writers and it shows.

Over a thousand years later, Balthazar is still looking. His quest has taken him to present day Manhattan. There he finds young Dave (Jay Baruchel) who seems to be “The One” who can finally defeat the evil sorceress. First, however, the reluctant apprentice must learn to embrace his destiny and become the great wizard that he was meant to be.

Director Jon Turteltaub knows how to stage the action in thrilling fashion. The movie has a handful of great scenes that sweep you up and into the film. The special effects showing Cage and Molina hurling fireballs at each other would have been a little easier to swallow had they not followed “The Last Airbender” so closely. That visual already seems old-hat, but the movie has plenty of other new ideas in its cannon.

The plot does get bogged down at times. The themes are a touch stale (accept your destiny, be yourself, don’t open evil nesting dolls), and the boy/girl elements featuring Dave and his pretty love interest, Becky (Teresa Palmer), are forced and play as an almost mandatory device that the filmmakers use to kill time—and it kills a bunch of it. Dave trips over himself trying to woo Becky, and it would have been nice if “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” had focused a little more on the hocus pocus.

Still, what “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” has going for it are huge doses of entertaining action and fun. If these sorts of sword and sorcery flicks excite you, this will not disappoint. Also, it is nice to see Nicholas Cage chew the scenery again. Now maybe they can make that sequel to “Peggy Sue Got Married” I’ve always wished for…

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